


Smooth Criminal 2- He's My Brother

by PsychicAbsol



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Bad Puns, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Family Dinners, Legendary Pokemon - Freeform, Lesbian Character, Minor Injuries, Non-Graphic Violence, Pokemon Battle, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4310490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychicAbsol/pseuds/PsychicAbsol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A mark of a totally competent and self-sustaining league is that, as soon as they run out of resources, they hire a well known criminal to do their job for them. And as a sign that your family is functional as it can be, you decide to let your brother tag along. Oh, and did I mention that your absolutely not girlfriend freak of a gym leader is in on it as well?” Sequel to “Smooth Criminal”, Sabrina x J.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Sequel to “Smooth Criminal”. More plot driven, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of humor included as well. Sort of AU in regards to family connections. These (more precisely: J’s family) are made up. 
> 
> About the timeline: Takes place a few months after “SC1”, still during the DP series, around DP090, so about a month in-universe time after “Giratina and the Sky Warrior”.
> 
> Update: Uploaded an edited chapter, since one scene was eaten during the first attempt at uploading.

Part I

The cliffy, snow-covered hillsides of the Silver Mountains are known for two things: 1. They’re cliffy. 2. They’re snow-covered. 

And 3., they are, in fact, mountains and not hillsides, but that’s neither here nor there. 

And, consequently, they’re so hard to ascend that they pose one of the greatest challenges for human climbers and trainers accompanied by Pokemon alike. In fact, the mountains had attracted such an audacious clientele that the league had to enforce trespassing laws to get their brave, brainless trainers from breaking more than just a single bone. For years and decades, the clear, unmistakable rule had been: Only someone worthy of the title of the one and only Pokemon Master may enter the mountains, still on their own risk and without any life insurance, but with the knowledge that should he fail in his aim of conquering the harsh wilderness, there would be no help, and consequently, no hope for him. 

Except for the glory of being known for his act for the remainder of civilization, however long that may be. 

Fortunately, there had been no one earning the title of Pokemon Master for nearly twenty years, so the closed-off area remained what it had always been: A refugium for rare Pokemon. 

And with the way the league utterly failed to define what a Pokemon Master was, after all, except for the debatably lame description of a really, _really_ strong trainer, there was no reason to believe than anything would change anytime soon. 

But change is inevitable, even in nature, even with massive mountains that seemed to be as eternal as the sky. 

And as such, this day, an old man with graying hair and a lab coat thrown over his hiking vest, accompanied by a boy no older than twelve tried to take his chance at overcoming the threat of Mount Silver. 

And, while they were at it, probably overcoming the threat of his increasing arthritis. 

Professor Oak, also known as the most well known Pokemon luminary despite having never left his home town, was huffing and puffing, and blowing out air like an old steam engine. He was covered in sweat and scratches from brambly bushes, and his face was glowing positively pink. 

Just two steps behind him was a young boy, clothed in a far more fitting attire, yet burdened with several pouches, sacks and other stowage facilities. He looked to be just as tired as the professor, but thanks to the sheer advantage of his youth, he didn’t look as if he was cornering a heart attack. 

“Are we there yet?” The boy asked, wiping sweat from his blue-tinted, dark hair. 

Professor Oak would have groaned in exasperation if he didn’t need every breath of oxygen to keep himself from tumbling over. “Not…much….longer…” It remains unclear if he was talking about their route, or the time he had left before he would kick the bucket. 

The extraordinary couple was on a special quest. One that required finesse, strength, stamina and knowledge. 

And sadly, the league hadn’t been able to find a single person who possessed all of these attributes, so they had to send the runner ups. 

An hour, six bottles of water, seven liters of sweat, twenty milliliters of blood and a negligible amount of urine later, the two individuals were finally standing in front of the cave they had been looking for the whole time. 

Professor Oak emanated an aura of pride, or, alternatively, was succumbing to anoxia. 

“This is it, Gerard.” 

“My name is Gilbert, mister.” 

“Oh, right, sorry.” Professor Oak cleared his throat. “This is Moltres’ cave. This is where we’ll find the legendary flame of Indigo, the most sacred fire on the continent.” 

Ho-Oh would like to have a word with him. 

Professor Oak took another breath before the air would inevitable become carbonaceous and kill his lungs off faster than he could say “uno, dos, tres”. 

“Um, mister?” The boy behind him asked, timidly raising his arm as if he were in school, and not several hundreds of miles away from civilization, with no one but an old geezer accompanying him. “Isn’t it unsafe to enter the cave just like that?” 

“Of course not!” We’re not talking about a two meter tall god-like bird of fire, but a burning pet parrot, right. 

“But if it puts your mind at ease, I’ll let out Dragonite. Just in case.” Just in case Moltres was feeling hungry, and tasty, well-done human flesh was on his dinner menu today. 

The boy nodded slowly, before glancing at his own Pokemon companion, a young, still unfit Bulbasaur, which was certainly the greatest choice of Pokemon he could have picked when he was going to meet with the legendary bird of fire. Sadly, this subitem had not been on his contract yet when he had signed the declaration of agreement in order to become an official trainer and had chosen the little plant dinosaur as his new best friend for eternity, or, alternatively, for as long as he felt fit to challenge the trainers and gyms of Kanto alike. 

Professor Oak took a deep breath, and released the huge dragon from his capsule prison. The dragon was just as old as he was, but since dragons count in different eras than mere humans do, the Pokemon might as well have been a fledgling compared to what the mortal duo would find in the cave. The professor was well aware of this hazard, but he was counting on Moltres’ hospitability and the fact that they were coming with- not good, but at least friendly intention. 

As we already said, the jury’s still out on if he was already suffering from brain damage by mountain sickness, or if dementia was finally showing its grotesque mask. 

Or if he was just incredible naïve. 

“Don’t worry, Gordon.” 

“Gilbert.” 

“Yes, I know.” The professor coughed. “We’re just after its flame. Nothing more. Just the flame.” He nodded. “A prestigious duty to collect the flame of Indigo for the tournament. This is a moment that will go down in history.” 

As the time a well-known professor and his protégé were flambéed and served with wood strawberries . and a nice, full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon. 

“And you should be proud that you were selected to be the one to hold the torch first. Remember it, savor every moment of it, my dear, for this will be an one and only chance. Your face, your story, your name will be known to all of mankind! Don’t forget a single episode of this, Gabriel.” 

“Gilbert.” 

~*~Scene change~*~

The luxurious headquarter of the league did not only provide fancy halls fit to gather all gym leaders and partners for glamorous conventions, but also most of the management of the league and the bureaus of the Elite Four themselves, which were, for those folks expecting lavish interior, a bit underwhelming, as even those who earned more money than they could safely spend in a lifetime found themselves at a need for practicality and comfort. And as such, Lance’s office didn’t differ as much from the usual companies’ head’s office than one might think. Except for the five meter long mahogany office desk. Or the brocade curtains. Or the Persian carpet. Or the antique canapé. Or the two ninja servants fanning their boss in spite of the functioning air conditioning that was sparsely needed in the mountain area. 

The one that had been called to Lance’s office this morning was hardly impressed by the interior, either way. Still and stiff she stood in front of the man that was not only her boss, but responsible for a whole bunch of misfits that called themselves gym leaders. But his impressive pedigree did not end there. He was also the head of the shadowy organization known as the G-Man, who gave themselves no other description than working for the good and for achieving world peace, and might have as well been highly suspicious terrorists. 

Lance was sitting in front of his psychic gym leader, hands folded over each other in a gesture of serene calm. Which he was, most of the time, when he wasn’t out saving one third of the world, getting one third behind prison bars and nailing what was there to remain. 

“You know why I summoned you here?” He asked, not even bothering to wait for the answer. By now, he knew fully that his gym leader had known about his intentions the moment he had phoned her, if not even before. He wasn’t sure if fortune telling was actually within her arsenal. 

“It is future telling and I try not to predict the future unless I am forced, since even minimal knowledge about it can alter the future radically.” 

No, he was not unsettled by her behavior, clearly not. Not anymore. It had been _bad_ when she had still owned that horrible caricature of a doll. By now, it was merely irritating from time to time. 

„But am I correct in assuming that you know what I called you in for?“ He asked lamely, giving off the slightest hint that he might have rolled his eyes if he weren’t fairly above such indignity. 

“Yes”, she answered for him. 

Lance was close to dismissing her, as he knew that his prized psychic valued time just as much as he did, and given their narrow time frame, it was better to act now than to be sorry later. 

But Sabrina surprised him with a behavior that was so utterly out of the usual for her that he thought he might have misheard her at first. 

“But tell me…why me?” She looked at him, eyes open, question mark almost tattooed on her forehead. 

Lance blinked. “I thought that much was obvious?” He asked back, sarcastically, only to realize sharply that Sabrina was not in the possession of a dictionary for basic human communication connotations, and he would have to cut back his undertone if he were to be understood by her fully. 

“Excuse me, but I think it was obvious as to why I choose you.” He repeated himself, leaned back, playing with a pen between his nervous fingers. “After all, she is your ladyfriend, isn’t she?” 

“She isn’t.” Sabrina deadpanned, without effort, as she was merely answering Lance and not consciously trying to humor up the conversation. “That was merely an act. I had no other partner to turn up with at the winter’s ball, Lance.” 

Lance sighed. “That is actually sad to hear, Sabrina. I though the two of you got along quite well.” In all honesty though, the private affairs of his underlings only concerned him once they become tangent to the league’s affairs, at which point he often wished the kind of arranged marriages the dragon clan undertook weren’t so frowned upon. 

Or illegal. 

Sabrina paused. “You are not the first one to state such, Lance.” She almost, almost made a face, if not for the fact that it seemed physically impossible for her to convert any real expressions. 

“Then maybe the majority has a point, hm?” Lance tried to smile, but the cold statue of a psychic standing in front of him stole his smirk before it had even fully formed. He sighed and shrugged, hand waving his last comment. “Either way, get in contact with her, tell her about the issue, and see to that she accepts the task, regardless of how you have to assure her compliance. I and the whole of the league put all of our faith in you, Sabrina.” He wasn’t entirely sure if that didn’t amount to playing jeopardy. Just a few years ago, he wouldn’t have bet on the psychic if his life depended on it, and now he was commissioning her with high security information. 

Years ago, she had been pretty much the sole reason for his inspector Joy reservoir to run dry, and he still hadn’t gotten all of them back. 

She nodded slowly, so slowly, he would have to rewind his security tapes to see if he hadn’t just imagined the movement. “Understood.” And with that, she teleported out of the office, leaving no trail of her presence behind. 

Lance swung around in his office chair, glancing sideways at his telephone. Maybe it was time to tell his runner-ups that he had a job for them. 

After all, it wasn’t wise to put all of his eggs in one basket, and it wasn’t very wise either to trust fully in a duo that was comprised of a more than dubious psychic and her verifiable criminal girlfriend. 

What nobody bothered to tell Lance, though, was that relying on a just as wicked psychic and his demonstrable instable girlfriend wasn’t sane either. 

~*~ Scene change~*~

“Are we close enough to the target yet to begin the capture process, navigator?” 

“Negative, captain. Target seems to have relocated itself to an undersea cave, if sonar report is to be believed.” 

A deep-throated groan. “Great!” The captain stood up, her cape wiping the floor behind her, and cutting the air as sharp as a blade could. One has to wonder why she didn’t cut her ankles, but then, the owner of this garment herself was made of a material unknown to mankind. She wouldn’t have been able to remain the top dog in her business for so long if it hadn’t been for her guts. 

During her whole career, if you wanted to put it in such a positive way, the instances where Jean Hunter, or as the world came to know her, Hunter J, had been captured were so rare you could count them on the fingers of one hand. The latest trip to the prison cell was dated back barely a few months ago, and had ended with J getting her freedom back in exchange for accompanying a lonesome gym leader to the annual winter’s ball. Ever since then, she had avoided Kanto like an unhealthy plague, and if it hadn’t been for this lucrative task, she would have stayed away from Kanto even longer, thank you very much. 

But her employer was as wealthy as he was desperate, and the unusualness of the target itself had tempted her. Even before accepting the mission, she had known it would put both her and her crew under immense pressure, and test out the real resilience of their equipment. 

And now, she was forced to stall, and that not even for the first time. 

“How many fucking underwater caves can there be in Cerulean Sea?!” She snarled, bringing her fist down on the backrest of her seat. Her head commander shivered slightly, before giving the wrongest answer he could. 

“Uh, many?” 

On a scale from false to so horrendous erroneous that one deserves to be beheaded with a blunt rasper, he was very close to the kitchen utensil. 

J had to keep breathing in order to keep herself from spitting right into his pale, disruptive face. Oh, how she wished sometimes for a new, a better crew, one that was at least as sensible as not to shit out their zany mistakes in front of her face, but alas, as long as robots were nothing more than defective machines programmed and operated by even more screwed humans, she was stuck with what she had. Even if she sometimes felt that she would be better off with holograms instead of blood and flesh humans. 

Though she would likely miss the torture opportunities mere humans provided her with. 

She rubbed her temple. “Okay, okay…did you mark the last position of the target?” 

“Yes, madam.” 

“Do you reasonable believe that the target will reappear at this spot in assessable time?” 

The henchman gulped. He was very well aware that his answer would determine if he would be gutted in assessable time, but he was no Pokemon behavioral biologist. 

And even if he was, the likelihood that a Dragonite of around forty feet would act just like any other exemplar of his species was very small. 

“There is a chance, madam.”” He answered placably. 

J took a deep breath. “So there’s a chance we’re stuck in this Arceus-forsaken country at this goddamn shore waiting for this cursedly slow ass Dragonite to show its crackbrained bum!” She massaged her temple. “Okay, fine. That’s okay for the moment, it’s okay. It can’t get any worse, right?” 

“Good evening, Jean.” 

“Aahhhh…” 

Yes, it can. 

“What the hell are you mother-fucking freak doing in here?!” J shrieked, her arsenal of swearwords not yet depleted. 

The psychic, obviously not fazed by J’s uncordial welcome, wasted no time explaining her presence. “I’m here with an offer by the league for you.” 

J, though she tried her best not to show it in front of her henchmen, smirked. “What, shall I play your bride again?” 

And just as expected, as her henchmen were very much human and as such possessed the stage of maturation a primary school attendant would have, presented with a textbook joke such as this, there was giggling behind her. 

J shot off her calcification beam without even taking a look at the henchmen she was hitting it with, hoping that she wasn’t particularly aiming it at the main navigator. 

“No, unfortunately, this is not the gift I can offer you.” 

J raised an eyebrow. If she hadn’t hoped to know any better, she would have believed the psychic to actually sound disappointed with this declaration. 

“Okay, so what then? What can I, the sinful criminal marked as the undesirable number one, do for your holy league of saints?” 

Sabrina glanced at her side, tilting her body slightly as if she had been glued to the ground actually, before switching directions and looking J back directly in the face. 

“Would it be possible for us to discuss this in private?” 

J shrugged. “Sure, okay.” With that, she turned around, and barked at her henchmen, who were hurriedly trying to free the ship’s cook from his bronze prison. “You heard her, right? No eavesdropping, unless you want your ears to drop!” 

And with that, she jumped off the backrest of her chair, as she had actually been sitting owl style in surprise the whole time. 

No more than two minutes after the two women had left the room, the horde of henchmen stormed to door, and consequently the keyhole, with several of them stating their excitement at finally seeing their boss being French kissed. 

The cook was left in a state of half-freedom, with his lower parts sadly still being encased in metal. 

“What did I say?” The real J snarled, smashing the door open so wide and sharply that she jammed several fingers, and nearly some other appendages as well, before turning back to her psychic companion with a deep sigh. “I must admit, mind reading and psychic illusions are highly useful abilities…thanks for informing me about their misbehavior.” She paused, closing the door in-between, ignoring the bowl of whimpering henchmen. “Remind me to reintroduce capital punishment.” 

“Don’t mention it.” The psychic didn’t bother looking around, even though J had involuntarily piloted them into her personal quarters. The older woman supposed that the psychic had no need to look through her personal belongings. Physical apparitions of her mental state were certainly of less interest to someone who could browse through her soul as easily as through an open book. 

Not that she owned many private items, either way. 

And certainly not the kind of items for classified use that her henchmen undoubtedly believed her to possess. 

J leaned against her desk, blocking what little documents of importance she had laying there from view, though she was fairly sure that it was an effort in vain. “Okay, shoot.” She smirked. One day, she would have to ask the psychic if she was opposed to handguns. Given her possible range of methods of murder, it was likely that she preferred not to burn her hands off and perforate her ear drums during such a stunt. 

Sabrina didn’t lean against anything. In fact, the psychic seemed not to possess the ability to stand in any way other than stiff and rigid, at least not when away on league’s business. 

“The league needs your knowledge in a complicated case of thievery, and the possible consequences of said act. We have leads, but no concrete suspect. Yet the league’s leaders belief this to become a matter of national importance, and therefore, they were willing to accept the assistance of less than law abiding sources.” 

“You mean me…” J grinned. 

Sabrina nodded. “Of course.” 

J crossed her arms. “Tell me more. What is the matter of nation-wide scare tactic that has your bosses shitting their pants?” 

Sabrina wordlessly held out something she had been hiding behind her back the whole time. A small USB-Stick, unimposing and inconspicuous. 

J raised her eyebrow again. She was already becoming aware that this was becoming quite the frequent action for her whenever the psychic was concerned. 

“My, are we in a spy movie now? Should I fear that the stick will explode five minutes after I’ve readout it?” 

“That should not happen, but I cannot rule it out, either.” 

J rolled her eyes, shrugged and turned around, pushing the little stick into the USB-port of her laptop. 

“Care to tell me a little more while this ancient baby here tries not to have a hard drive attack?” 

Sabrina didn’t bother to nod, since J was sitting with her back to her. “This is compiled purchase info the league has gathered over the past five months. It displays the date, amount, type, seller and buyer data. Or the sparse amount of what we have.” 

“Okay. So what am I supposed to do, check your income-outcome balance?” 

“No, we don’t want to torture you just yet. The league has been financing a secret project of Bill Hatch with which he wants to improve and push on his research on a rare kind of Dragonite that is rumored to live around here.” 

J, to her defense, didn’t betray any kind of nervousness at the statement that her target was involved in a league-financed project as well. She had long since foregone hypocrisy, as she would have hardly made a fortune if she didn’t swap alliances as fast as some people switched through relationships. 

Unfortunately, as she was well aware, she was residing in the same room as the mindreader was, and she did not doubt that Sabrina had been aware of this coincidence even before she had entered the ship. 

“I do know that said Dragonite is your current target, but this is not the circumstance I was concerned with.” 

“Hm…then what else keeps you up at night?” J mumbled, still waiting for her relict of a computer to stop throwing a fit at every megabyte extra that was thrown at it. She tried not to think consciously of the several ways her question could be interpreted. 

“The problem lies within the fact that in order to capture the giant Dragonite, Mr. Hatch has been working together with the main Pokeball manufacturer here in Kanto,” 

“Silph Co., located in your hometown, sweety”, J interjected, not even turning around for she feared the sudden rise of blood pressure that had entered her face at her unintentional compliment would show itself. 

“Indeed. They have been working on a prototype, so called Enormous Balls…” 

“And that went through censorship without complaint? Okay.” 

“…build to capture Pokemon too tall to be trapped by normal Balls. The blue prints for this kind of Pokeball have been locked away in a secret place in safes across the border.” 

Which meant that her psychic acquaintance was aware of their location up to an inch, likely. 

“Yes, I am, but I do not humor myself by stealing them just for fun.” 

J was almost tempted to turn around and see if the psychic would actually dare to ask her if she could make her an offer, but decided against it. If Sabrina wanted to, she would, not doubt. 

Despite the fact that it was appealing to think of such a simple solution to her troubles, J would deny her, then, for the fact that her pride would not allow herself to fall back onto league’s resources if there was the chance that her own team might make it as well. 

Losing a few henchman or parts thereof weren’t worth burying her delight at being a self-made woman. 

And she could still steal the blueprints if she felt like it. 

J leaned back. The list had finally decided to stop fussing around and arranged itself on her laptop. There was a long string of incomprehensible data codes, along with bank details and coded article names. One look told her that it was a fairly complex matter, complete with components that no normal, average human not keen on world domination would ever need in their life, much less buy online like vegetables at a grocery store. 

Unless they were planning on building a miniature death star for their front garden. 

She smacked her tongue against her gum. “Let me guess…the blueprints got leaked, and now someone is assembling their own personal giant Ball.” 

“Indeed.” 

“And what does this have to do with me, exactly?” 

“We need someone to tattle out the culprit. It was the combined conclusion of the league and Mr. Hatch that this would best be done by someone who has in-depth knowledge about the criminal underground. An expert of sorts.” 

„An expert in what, exactly? Internet hacking? Smuggling? Industrial espionage? I am neither of these, honey. I am just a hunter, and you’ll have to force the names of my clients out of my cold, stiff hands once I’m on deathbed.” 

“Don’t tempt me. And we are simply looking for someone who has the resources available to track the culprit. Given the Ball’s limited usefulness in capturing average Pokemon, we suppose that whoever is copying the design is looking to capture a much more powerful individual, likely even a legendary. You are an informant of the league that has the closest interaction with similar incidents.” 

J grimaced. She couldn’t argue against that logic without denying some of her previous missions. In that regard, she could almost, _almost_ see through the league’s logic. It was probably easier to hire her and cut off all connections afterwards than to install an official investigation group and having to deal with the pesky media all the time that gloriously managed to drive panic deep into the hearts of the public. 

Not that she didn’t, but when she did, it was fewer individuals and it was more…personal. 

And it involved charming torture. 

J massaged her temples. She didn’t have a headache yet, a clear sign that while the simple presence of the psychic was unnerving her consciousness, subconsciously, she wasn’t even bothered. She would have to question her sanity later. 

“And what’s in for me? Don’t you think I work for free, just because it’s you.” 

Had J turned around, she would have come to witness the mysterious Mona-Lisa smile of the psychic again, who fully knew that she had long since twisted J around her little finger, without any- or, let’s say, a negligible amount of psychic power involved. 

“The league is wealthy. I’ll see to it that you are adequately rewarded.” 

J made a face. Damn money and its value in today’s capitalistic sinkhole of a society! It made honorable thieves’ work so much more difficult. She really was a sucker for anything that would make capturing Pokemon and making even more money easier, and sadly, banknotes were the grease her business needed to prosper. 

“Hm, okay, I guess I can have a look at it later.” She pouted behind the psychics back. No, _she_ wouldn’t take a look at it, certainly. She had someone on her mind who would, though. 

And, as frustrating as it was to admit, she would need the league’s help in before. 

“Under one condition…” She turned back dramatically, one finger raised, attempting to impress the psychic. 

Failing miserably, as many had before her. 

“I know. We’ll see to it that the government of Sinnoh is informed.” 

J paused. For a moment, she looked comically flabbergasted, and she was honestly happy that none of her henchmen were available to witness this sight so that she would have to behead them on the spot, or else gauge out their eyes with a nail file. For she certainly didn’t want to have to hire an entirely new crew. Not when she was just about to burden herself with a deal of another sorts. A person of such an entirely different sort that she was almost inclined to say that the psychic was _normal_ compared to said individual. 

“Just like that?” 

“Just like that. After all, remember that I got you out of prison without having to inform the government beforehand, either.” 

Well, J mused, that had been because it had been a _personal_ affair of the psychic, and she was fairly sure that whatever got personal to her, got solved very fast, no matter how many heads had to be rolled away from their respective owners’ necks. 

And because she was getting to know the psychic by now, J had a fairly got feeling of the answer she was about to receive. “We will visit him right away, I suppose?” 

A nod. “Anything that will bring an end to this matter sooner than later.” 

J sighed, and stood up. “Okay, got it. Just going to inform my crew about our involuntarily side trip.” She walked up to the door, pausing only to turn around to face the psychic. “You coming, too?” She wasn’t yet willing to accept that asking any kinds of questions was a lost case. She hadn’t thrown out all standard rules of human interaction yet. 

“Of course. I am the official representative of the Kanto league regarding this affair.” 

J smirked and hoped that the Sinnoh league was ready to deal with a stubborn stoic with a record in bailing out offenders. As far as she was informed about the executive of her home country, they were utterly unprepared for this sort of inquiry. 

“And I will need to persuade the police squad of Sinnoh of the urgency of the matter, which requires unusual arrangements.” 

“It doesn’t happen to require the usage of your powers, by any chance?” 

“I would wager the guess that it should not, unless the resistance we are met with proves to be unmovable by diplomatic negotiation.” 

J had to fight the urge to roll her eyes and smile in an almost maniac manner. “Honey, I’m afraid that with the kind of nation-wide offender we’re going to be dealing with, peaceful argumentative discussion won’t be an option.” After all, they were going to force the release of someone who had almost toppled off the world’s balance, compared to what J’s crimes almost seemed childish and pitiful. 

The two women had entered the conning bridge, where J’s henchmen were eagerly awaiting their next command. 

Or, alternatively, had been loafing around, using the rare fifteen minutes of peace and recreation that were given to them as a gift from heaven above. 

“Buttheads, get up your lazy asses and change course. Stack up on provisions, don’t forget gas, don’t forget food. If we run out of either, it’s you who’s thrown out with empty, starving stomachs, got it? And don’t even start to think that we’ll land for your eviction.” 

She let herself fall down her chair, taking a deep breath once the general hustle of her henchmen started to settle down into more controlled movements of preparation. 

It was finally then, that her navigator dared to approach her with a concerned look. Not that this was all the different, because he always approached her with a look that told her of all of his insecurities, most, if not all of them directly or indirectly connected with her. 

And she was damn proud of it, right she was! 

She didn’t bother oppressing her grin then. “What?” She barked at him. 

“Ehm, madam, sorry for my inquiry, but may I ask where we’re actually heading to, so I can program the route?” 

After all, what help was a good navigator without his trusted satnav? 

J glanced at her side, finding absolutely no objection there. Or even a reaction of any sorts that would have shown that the psychic was actually acknowledging the question. 

She sighed. “Sinnoh. Sunyshore.” She had to take a deep breath, for what she said next wasn’t exactly something she was proud to say. “That’s where my dear baby brother is detained.”


	2. Chapter 2

Part II

It is said that to be a true genius, one has to trade a hefty amount of sanity for something that might be called “creative interpretation” in a positive light. Any less amicably individuals might say that it is not wisdom that has been achieved, but that the foundations for a new evil mastermind have been laid out. 

Arguably, both assumptions held true to the young man who dwelled in a small, dark prison cell in middle Sunyshore. 

Despite being quarantined in one of the most bleak, empty cells that existed- for his own good, no less!, he was surrounded by things he had designed himself, many of them mechanistic in nature, despite their crude level. It wasn’t his fault that all he had to work with were plastic forks, safety pins and his bed sheet’s thread. Considering the destitution he had to bear, it was remarkable that he had managed to construct the miniature figure of a young woman with colorful hair and a short dress formed out of metal rings that were covered in white fibers. 

Clearly, an interested hobby psychologist from the outside would claim, the young man had been in prison long enough to start missing the assets of real life woman and to satisfy his primal needs, had resorted to the most primitive form of inflatable companionship. 

Yet our concerned observer would soon notice that the way the young man interacted with his makeshift girlfriend was not in any way sexual, but rather affective and almost sweet, if not for the general awkwardness that was to be expected when one addressed inanimate objects as their ‘dearest, kindest soul mate’. 

And once said observer were to be informed about the turpitude that had brought the young man behind jail- which wasn’t of a sexual nature in the earnest, he would nevertheless back away and slowly recline into his well of solitude and normality, before deeming the inmate to be yet another promising soul lost to nerdtum and bemoan the fate would befall that seemingly all individuals with a knack for mathematics and physics sooner or later. 

And the man himself wouldn’t even condemn such a judgment, because he had stopped to give a damn about other people’s opinions the moment his greatness had revealed itself to him, and he had realized the kind of lordship he was truly destined for. 

Who cared if his fate was it to bring imbalance to the world? Who gave a damn if the Holy Grail he was reaching for was the proper, only embodiment of evilness mankind knew? Who was there to denunciate him once he was the only soul existing- not living, in the world that was truer than the real world, despite being its total opposite? The world as he had come to know was a wicked, fabricated place, made out of lies, unkindness and tears, and the world beyond, ruled by none other than the Pokemon of darkness, was what would be left once all of the sins had been washed out, and he, he alone, would triumph by being what he always had been, pure, logical and uncaring for everything other than the ultimate good. The ultimate good, found in an environment ruled by nothing other than horror itself, was what had him fascinated for the greater part of his life and career, and had resulted in him breaking the boundaries between the worlds and merging what was never meant to touch, even. 

As we can all conclude at this point, the young man had lost a lot more than just his marbles. 

Zero. His name’s origin either accredited to particularly sarcastic and uncaring parents, or to an inability to choose something that didn’t imply an inborn tendency to losing before even trying. 

Given these facts, the sheer belief that he would be of help for any government, more so than for one that was struggling with a highly secretive turmoil, was laughable. 

And yet, that was exactly the intention J had come to Sinnoh with. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting her younger brother- not any more than she was looking forward to having her wisdom teeth pulled out without anesthesia, but she didn’t know any other person that fulfilled the textbook description of “computer nerd” so painfully well that it seemed he had jumped out of some newspaper caricature strip. 

The psychic following her on official order of the league- and to no small amount because she had taken an inward liking to the positively self-reliant hunter, seemed completely unfazed by the ordeal. As if that was anything new. J supposed that if asking a well-known criminal out on a date without batting an eyelash didn’t make you keel over, nothing could. 

Which was a good thing. Knowing her brother’s quirks, she needed someone mentally stable enough not to freak out or being so entirely irritated that they resorted to physical violence. 

Not as if _she_ herself hadn’t been driven to that point, several times actually. But he was still her brother, and fratricide was actually not on today’s agenda. 

She flexed her fingers. Getting into the high security prison of Sunyshore had, in reality, been pitifully easy. She supposed that having a gym leader with her, who oh so fortunately carried a letter with the official seal and signature of the Kanto champion made getting a visitor’s visa easier in general. Still, she had to frown at the actual safety precautions being undertaken. Or rather, not being undertaken. There was still the option of being shaken down, but once the psychic at her side had so much as glared in the general direction of the police officers, there was suddenly no talk anymore about touching them any way inappropriate at all. 

Which was probably a good thing. For the officers, that is. 

And for her, since she wasn’t keen on revealing the assortment of weapons she tended to carry on her. 

“I will talk to him first. I sense that there are underlying accusations between the two of you.” 

J rolled her eyes. That was putting it nicely. “Just, ah…don’t judge him from the get-go, okay? He’s a bit weird.” J had to remind herself who exactly she was telling here about her brother’s bright and shining personality, and sighed. Was she cursed to be blessed with a whole bunch of misfits in her life? Where had she gone wrong to deserve such punishment, besides choosing the way of illegality, of course? 

Or was all of this just an elaborate scheme to give her greater insight into what she herself as a person truly was? 

She wouldn’t have minded asking her companion some of her questions, despite her initial feeling that any answer she would get would probably just enkindle a dozen other questions, but the psychic was already gone, leaving J to tap her foot on the ground agitatedly. 

She didn’t have to wait for long, though. Barely six minutes later, the psychic walked up to her again, J’s dearest baby brother Zero in tow. Who looked positively confused, clutching his sparse belongings to his chest. J had to suppress an involuntary twitch of her eyebrow when she saw him carrying a miniature doll of that _thing_ that had encompassed his heart. 

Not to mention that the _other thing_ that had engraved its mark on her brother’s mind was printed in bright colors on his shirt. 

“Still a Giratina fetishist after all, I see”, she gibed, all the while wondering if the police had actually confiscated his suit. She hoped they had done so. And hoped that they had burned it with ethyl alcohol later. 

Zero blanched. He was still likely under shock. She clearly would have been, had she just been bailed out by a psychic claiming to be working for the government of Kanto. 

And going back in time a few months… 

“I am not sure…” He began, his voice still so sillily boyish as if he had never entered puberty. If J had been asked, she wouldn’t have been able to tell, either, despite being nearly a decade older. “…why I am being let out?” 

J smirked. “That’s nice, Zero. It makes two of us. But for starters, the official rationale behind is that the league has asked me to help them rattle out a potential threat and for that, dear brother, your incredible calculating machine of a mind is needed.” 

Zero blinked, glancing from his sister to the woman no less stranger who had let him out of his cell. If he hadn’t been so utterly baffled by her action, he would have asked her what kind of personal chip she had installed in her fingers to be able to open up the lock with a single touch. And maybe see to it that he could get into the possession of a similar item, in case he was being held against his will somewhere else again. 

As his inner monologue indicated, the siblings were closer in mind and intention than they liked to believe. 

Zero sighed and hand waved the last comment. “I’ll see if I can be of any help to you, seeing as how I seem to remember that you favor outdated, cheaper equipment to more high-powered computers.” 

“Well, brother, maybe _one_ of us didn’t have his ass financed by the university, and couldn’t storm the electronics shop every six minutes to get the newest model!” 

“And this example illustrates perfectly how this will end, with the scrooge running for help to the genius, begging on her knees for him to calculate what her equipment obviously cannot do on its own!” 

“Oh, I’ll show you what I can do on my own! Shoving your bloated ego up your asshole, that I can do!” 

Sabrina, who had never witnessed a sibling quarrel in her whole life, stood blissfully unaware of it in-between the two white-heads. Before J and her brother could start bitch-slapping each other, though, the psychic coughed politely. 

“I think there is a task to fulfill.” 

Both siblings stared at her, before burying the hatchet. For a moment. Such a weapon was way too valuable to be left behind. 

They left the prison wing unchallenged, although it felt like an out-of-body experience for both J and Zero. J, because she wasn’t sure if she should explode with anger or anxiety, and Zero, because he still wasn’t sure if the police eyeing him conspiratively wouldn’t jump out all of the sudden and pin him to the ground, only to drag him back into his cell the next moment. 

„Do you still have that monstrous example of an unairworthy flying battle fort?” 

“No, in the meantime, I switched to a winged bicycle, as it consumes no gas, I can transport my henchmen on the carrier and I get super taut tights that way.” 

J had to repress the urge to bat away Sabrina’s face when the psychic actually dared to look downwards at her words. 

“Speaking of…here it is.” She paused. She actually had to congratulate her head commander for choosing a parking place without attracting unwanted attention. It was, she had to admit, a bit finicky to park an airship the size of a soccer field without inwardly crushing anything that moved or didn’t move underneath. She hardly had any space left on the exterior wall to continue her tally sheet. 

Zero harrumphed. “I see you still haven’t included the dimension-warpers I instructed you about.” 

“Yes, because being able to twist the dimensions is just so useful for my everyday work.” J rolled her eyes. 

“And how do you think your invisibility shields work, huh? By bending light, which is…” 

Sabrina coughed politely. “Actually, teleporting involves a variant of twisting space as well, so I suppose a mechanical supported version of it would be as useful to you as my abilities have been, so far.” 

At her words, Zero’s eyes actually lit up. “Oh, so you’ve experience with the other dimensions? Would it be possible for you to elaborate on this later?” 

J suppressed a groan. “Fine, if you two want to talk about supernatural mumbo-jumbo, do as you please. I’ll be busy actually making money while you ponder over your submission for Nobel prize in inapprehensible physics.” 

“Well, if you’re that insistent on making profit with me, why don’t you introduce me to that task you said you had for me?” 

That, J had to admit, was actually a reasonable question. As they walked onto the ship, she waved towards the psychic, who was walking through the corridors with an air of confidence around her as if she had never known any other structure. 

"From what I gathered from her, it’s a case of industrial espionage her league- she’s from Kanto, is concerned with. They fear that someone might be building huge Balls”, she glanced aside to see if her brother would get the innuendo, but as she suspected, he was as sexual as a Pancham, “in order to catch a particularly tall or powerful Pokemon. The league’s got data on purchases indicating such a leak of blueprints, but they apparently aren’t competent enough to puzzle together who the culprit behind is. That’s our mission.” 

Zero was silent the whole time , and if she knew him- which she obviously did, she was his _sister_ , after all, then the fine gears behind his eyebrows were already in motion. It meant that he wasn’t to be disturbed by mere mortals such as her, because they couldn’t even begin to contemplate his ways of reasoning. 

“And you couldn’t bring my own equipment?” He asked in disgust when presented with his sister’s ancient technology. 

J pouted, even though she subconsciously had to admit that her brother had a point. Even her head commander had advised her to buy a new laptop, but she had declined by kicking him in the groin, on the account that her computer was still good enough to play Solitaire at night and surf the web whenever she was in the mood to look for videos of baby Meowths. At the vet. Being pricked by needles. 

“That will not pose any problem.” The psychic interrupted her, before she could start another argument with Zero, and pointed out that she had teleported most of Zero’s belongings along, including Infi’s data chip, , causing the young man to gleam with excitement and thank her effusively. The hunter scoffed when Zero actually tried to put a kiss on the psychic’s hand, snatching him off her before he could even tilt his head. 

“Are you jealous, sister?” He asked with glee. 

J didn’t bother answering. Jerking his head around and smashing it into the computer screen was enough of an answer in her opinion. “Make yourself useful and look at the data, nerd! We have to find out who has gone on a suspicious shopping spree, not shower ourselves with praise just yet!” 

Zero rubbed his crinkled nose and wiped off the blood of the screen so that he could actually see the numbers clearly. “So you _are_ jealous, sis?” 

Snap. 

Sabrina sighed. “Be careful, Jean. I do not think the screen can be tilted back that much safely.” And neither can his neck, she quietly added. 

Zero blinked, once his cheek wasn’t kissing the computer screen anymore. “Jean? So she knows about your…” 

Crunch. 

“Jean, smashing his head _through_ the laptop will destroy valuable property that might be of use of for us and I will not tolerate the delay of the solution of our case.” 

“Okay, okay…can’t even have a little torture between siblings.” J growled, straightening her brother’s neck. 

Instead, she went for the psychic’s neck, but for once, she was neither murderous nor suicidal, but simply trying to tow away with the lesser of the two evils. At least that way, she could prove to her brother that she was not jealous. She couldn’t be jealous when there was no question of property ownership. 

“We’ll leave you to your own designs…” She snarled, knowing that Zero would not argue with her, as he valued his freedom and privacy just as much as she did. 

Not to mention that it would give him a freeway ticket to snoop through her belongings, likely expecting the same secrets to be unburied as her henchmen did, and therefore, miscalculating her needs and wants gravely. 

“Your brother is a particular person.” Sabrina said, almost casually, even though her voice could hardly even transport something such as banality. 

“Oh, he is, isn’t he?” J crossed her arms. “He tried to enter and rule the Reverse world, become best buddies with Giratina, that fool. Was nicked for it just recently, actually. All over the news in Sinnoh. He has had more interaction with his personal robot hologram lady of sorts than with actual human beings in the past years. I think university and his degree got up his mind. Too intelligent for his own good, if you ask me. He could have become a master thief with a mind such as his, but _noooo_ …he actually had to try and become king of the Reverse world, that bastard.” 

Sabrina stared at her unemotionally, nevertheless prompting J to come up with an explanation. “I think it’s all in the genes, actually.” She exhaled. “He became almost as bad as…” 

“Hey, sis!” The door to her personal quarters was opened, and Zero peeked out. 

J glanced at her wristwatch. Eight minutes. Not bad. Not a new record for him, but he was out of practice, likely. 

His face was grim, though. “I think I got our engineer. And you’re not going to like it, sis.” 

Two minutes later, the two women were standing besides Zero, who had constructed a multilayer graph in the span of sixty seconds to illustrate his findings, and was now gesturing all over the computer screen. 

“It wasn’t that hard at all. Find patterns in the distribution of sale dates to isolate the continent and the approximate area or at least a line in area changes, which in itself is a hint of location in that the location might be _moving_ , in fact. Then I looked through the bank details, looking for patterns in nationality of the bank, its classification and standard clientele, and, of course I checked the usual suspects in the blue web that might have the bank details ready for your personal use.” 

He looked actually smug here, and, by Arceus, J wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug grin across the computer screen, but that would blur the already close to incomprehensible words. Her psychic acquaintance didn’t seem to be impressed in any way. 

It was debatable if there was actually something that could possibly impress her. 

“And, lo and behold, there was actually a data set that included one of the aforementioned transaction data. I purchased it immediately- you two will have to sort out who’ll have to pay for it financially.” J wordlessly gestured towards Sabrina. She was the one under contract here, so there was no way she would pay for any buy-out her brother made. “And from there it was pretty much a cakewalk. There were several aliases used, but analysis of distribution and a simple google search told me who was behind it either way.” He hand waved that last comment, as if he had simply searched for lost kindergarten sweetheart’s location and not for the name of a potential threat to the stability of the world. 

“Cut the theatrics, Zero, and tell us who it is, already.” J insisted, despite her brother’s initial discomfort at the identity of the spy and manufacturer. 

Zero sighed. “It’s no other than our dear brother, Lawrence, sis.” 

To J’s defense, Sabrina was mindful enough of the situation to let the hunter hide behind her while J’s jaw hung open. 

“You have to be kidding me. “ She slowly emerged behind Sabrina’s back, gasping for air like a Magikarp out of water. “You are kidding me, right? This is not the first time you lied into my face, like that one time you told me you actually had brought to life a robot!” 

“Actually, Infi is…” Zero started, before coughing. “Forget it, sis, not going to start an argument with you about that.” His face and voice had lost all hints of humor. Instead, he was a dead serious as J could see her baby brother get. Which was still a lot, despite his overall quirkiness. 

“I’m 99% sure this is our brother’s work.” He leaned back in his chair. “Think about it. Wealthy enough to purchase material that most people would have to sell their liver for? Check. Clever and criminal enough to steal or copy the blueprints, despite them being stored in secrecy? Check. Interested in capturing legendary Pokemon? Check. Actually lunatic enough to go through with all of that? Check, check and checkmate.” He shrugged. “It’s either him, or someone so unbelievable similar to him that I’m tempted to think he was cloned.” 

„Which nobody sane would ever do, that be something we can actually agree on, Zero.“ J massaged her temples. Was it just her luck or had someone really hid a freak magnet in her pants recently? First the psychic, then her younger brother, and now, her older brother. It was coming to be point where she stopped believing in coincidences and came to the conclusion that she must have pissed off Arceus in some way. 

And she hadn’t even been actively trying to catch the God Pokemon! 

“Your brother…” The psychic inquired, without raising her voice. 

“Lawrence, technically, the third, but honestly, no one save for himself ever used the numbering system. We don’t even know how he came up with being the third! He’s the oldest!” Zero glanced at his sister. “As far as I remember, none of our male ancestors was named Lawrence.” He paused. “But to be fair, our family was never good at naming male offspring.” 

“They were, they just had no names idiotic enough left for you, so they started numbering.” 

“At least my name is _special_ , so I don’t have to invent aliases that are as groundbreaking as tennis socks!” 

“At least I _do_ use an alias, unlike you, who keeps plastering his real name all over his schemes and inventions! No wonder you got busted the very first time! It was inevi…what is that?” 

J turned around. She recognized the melody, but she couldn’t put her finger on where exactly she was hearing it from. It was a ringtone, that much was for sure, but… 

She glanced at her brother. “Not mine!” He said, shrugging his shoulders. 

She glanced at the other side, finding the psychic already answering her phone. 

The hunter smirked. She would have to ask her later why she found it appropriate to have the Ghostbusters’ title theme as a ringtone… 

“Understood. Yes, we have made considerable progress. I will connect you.” She put the phone at her side, without actually hanging up. “Zero, would you be so kind as to set up a connection with Indigo Headquarters?” 

“Sure!” 

J watched wordlessly as her brother apparently hacked into the central processor of the Kanto league as a finger exercise. 

“You could just have connected her phone with the screen if you wanted to initiate an audio conference.” 

“Hm, yes, I could have, sister.” He turned around on the chair, smiling, teeth showing. “But that would have been _easy_.” 

Sabrina prevented Lance from being greeted by the sight of Zero’s tongue smeared across the screen. 

The champion glanced across the area he could see through the screen, and inhaled at the sight of J and Zero. 

“I wasn’t aware that you had been liberating _two_ felons, Sabrina.” 

J peeked at the psychic and whispered. “You didn’t have his okay for bailing my brother out?” In hindsight, she realized she should have asked Sabrina how Lance came to know that it had been the psychic who had freed her from prison as well, _in addition_ to that to asking how the champion had come to know about her identity in the first place when they had been painfully strict in avoiding such an occurrence in the first place, last winter. 

At least unless the other weirdo had bombed their plans. 

“Not precisely.” She whispered back. Turned to her boss, she added. “You told me to take all actions necessary to fulfill your request Lance. I only did as told. And the young man here was able to identify the culprit in a remarkable short amount of time.” 

Lance sighed, hand waving. “Whatever, Sabrina. If it yields results.” He coughed. “Speaking off, I got an urgent phone call from Professor Oak and his assistant. You all know him?” 

“Yeah, old geezer, friend of all Pokemon, forgetful enough to need to be reminded of his own grandchild’s name. Well-known celebrity sixty years ago, when he was actually young enough to look somewhat handsome.” J answered. 

“That would be him, yes.” Lance’s eyebrow seemed as if it wanted to twitch, but he suppressed it successfully. “I will set the connection up so you can listen to his findings yourselves.” 

J had, in all of her life, never seen a dial-up that difficult, but her brother seemed to be positively delighted. 

It didn’t take long for the grimy face of a grey haired senior citizen to appear on screen, along with what had likely been once a young, innocent child’s face, but was now an oval, coaly potato with eyes. 

“CAN YOU HEAR ME!?” Oak practically screamed into the, indeed, loud speaker of his bone-shaped mobile. 

Each and every single of his listeners cringed and fidgeted away, while Zero adjusted the volume accordingly. 

“can you hear me?” Oak tried again, his mouth apparently moving on his own. 

“Zero, we’re no Loudreds, stop goofing around!” 

The young scientist threw his hands in the air. “Okay, okay, but it’s not only me, sis! The connection is as bad as three weeks old Mareep’s cheese!” 

“Says the lactose-intolerant…” 

“Yes, we can hear you, Professor Oak.” Sabrina intervened, although she was likely the only one bothered neither by Oak’s eardrum shattering screaming, nor by his following subspace whispering. 

The professor coughed, trying to empty his lungs from the venomous dust that covered his trachea. “My assistant George and I…” 

“It’s Gilbert, sir.” 

“Oh, sorry, boy. I was distracted. Where was I…” 

“You were at the beginning of your story, professor.” Lance answered, who, if his exasperated face was any indication, had been through the ordeal several times already. 

“Oh, right, yes. Well, my assistant Giles and I were hiking through the Silver Mountains in order to fetch the flame of the legendary Pokemon Moltres when we made a shocking discovery!” 

There was a long pause. 

“Which…would be?” Zero asked, when it became apparent that the professor had frozen in space and was not reacting to the constant tugging of the young boy besides him, anymore. 

“Ehh…right…where was I?” 

“You had just made a shocking discovery.” Lance repeated, head stabilized on his hand. 

“Ah, right! Well, Gerold and I had just entered the cave in order to light up the torch for the Indigo championship, you know, the torch for the flame of the legendary Pokemon Moltres, when we saw something unbelievable!” 

There was another pause. 

“Professor? Are you okay?” 

“Hmmm? Oh right, yes, I was telling you…what exactly again?” 

“You saw something unbelievable when you entered the cave.” Lance reminded him, sipping his coffee. 

“Indeed! Geronimo and I were exploring the cave of Moltres, the legendary fire Pokemon, in order to persuade it to ignite the fire for the tournament when we came across something unsettling.” 

He nodded to himself, closing his eyes and crossing his arms. 

“And…?” 

“Eh, where was I?” 

J pushed a bottom on her control panel. “Cook? Coffee, please. My usual, one with milk, sugar and cream for my brother, and one…” She looked up. “For you, sweety?” 

“Sugar. Lots.” 

“…and in the cave, we found something of particular interest.” 

“Oh, for Arceus’ sake, I can hardly endure the tension! May God have mercy on us!” Zero exclaimed. 

The small fry next to the professor decided to prevent a multiple mass murder organized by all three individuals at the other end of the connection by cheeping. “We found out that Moltres is missing!” Professor Oak pouted. “Now you stole the show!” 

Certainly a long-runner. 

“Missing?” Zero asked. “As in, absent?” 

The young boy…girl…coal-colored figure nodded. “The nest was deserted, and there were tracks of a battle having taken place.” 

Zero and his sister glanced at each other, before nodding silently. 

“Thank you for your information, Gregor.” 

“Gilbert, please, sir.” 

“Oh, sorry, I forgot.” 

“We noticed.” Zero added lamely. 

“Well, what he said, no? We found the nest of Moltres, and it was completely deserted. Ash-cold, if you may forgive me the pun.” 

All four individuals watching Professor Oak nodded solemnly. Apparently, a young boy from Pallet Town had _really_ gotten around. 

“And we found traces of a recent battle. Broken stalactites, unusual masses of debris and rubble, scorch marks all over the place- which wouldn’t be out of usual for the hiding place of Moltres, if they weren’t literally _everywhere_ and some of them bearing the marks of electrical burning, actually.” 

Zero and J again looked at each other. 

“Any clues on the reason of Moltres’ departure?” Lance asked. He had already noticed the conspirative exchange between the two criminals and was all the more eager to cut off the connection with Oak in order to address the two of them. 

Oak shrugged. “Unfortunately, no. There could be territorial clashes with neighboring Pokemon colonies, if not for the fact that Moltres pretty much lives all alone here at the top of the mountain. Its natural rivals Articuno and Zapdos also haven’t been sighted recently, so we can rule out another three-way battle for dominance.” 

Of course, J mused. It took an imbecile the size of her brother to unleash a world-changing contention between the three legendary birds. 

And a brainless pre-teen and a native- in-origin relaxation tape to bring to world to balance, again. 

Lance nodded. “I must thank you for your call, Professor Oak. Be assured that the league will take onto this matter, and see to it that the mystery is solved.” 

“No need to thank me, Lance. It was a pleasure talking to you.” 

“Likewise.” Lance answered, once again reconfirming J’s bias that most members of the league were brilliant liars. 

“And don’t forget little Gunthar here. He also did a lot of work!” 

“Gilbert!” 

And the line was cut off faster than any of them could have mustered to say their goodbye. 

Once again, J and Zero shared a look of unhidden intentions and knowledge. 

“That fits our speculation to a T.” 

Lance folded his hands over each other, having listened in, of course. “May I inquire what your speculation is comprised of?” 

“Well, from what m…Zero here concluded after having a look at your data, we had come to the conclusion that the culprit behind might be Lawrence, also known as Lawrence the third.” She rolled her eyes. 

Lance furrowed his brows. „Lawrence the third. He was responsible for an uproar in Shamouti Island, a few years ago. Before, he was a well-known and respected, if a little, ah, eccentric collector of rare Pokemon. I seem to remember that Mr. Hatch held him in high regards for his particular collection of Eevee evolutions and fossil Pokemon.” 

J shrugged. “Indeed, he had always been a devoted collector, even as a kid. It started with trading cards, went onto trading figures, and bam, one day you find him telling you over a game of chess that he’s going to collect legendary Pokemon.” 

“You know him?” Lance asked sharply. 

“We’ve made acquaintance.” J replied. It was a feeble attempt, as she was pretty sure that Kanto’s champion could find out about their accurate relationship quite easily, but for now, she felt more comfortable leaving their true link in the dark. 

“Hm.” Lance didn’t sound all that surprised. Maybe for him, the bright super hero, it was kind of obvious that all shady figures knew each other. 

The champion unfolded his hands. “Last time, he was stopped by Lugia itself. And one Ash Ketchum, let’s not forget the wonder child.” 

J grinned, and wasn’t surprised to see Zero grimacing as well, while the psychic kept her usual coolness. 

“The league put him under threateningly dangerous and originally ordered him to be detained in the high security prison on Pummelo Island. Sadly, the police force of the Islands never complied with the order.” 

J crossed her arms. Either she was starting to become paranoid, or Lance was hiding an accusation in there. She had no reason, though, to doubt her innocence, she clearly hadn’t helped her older brother out back then. It had been his fault getting into trouble by reaching for cherries that were clearly out of his reach, so it was his responsibility to save his ass as well. 

Family connections could only get you so far. Especially when she considered ditching his sorry ass as returning a favor he had done her many years ago. 

“It wouldn’t be out of the unusual for him to start targeting another Moltres now that he has likely gathered enough resources again for another capturing attempt. Moltres was among his recorded previous targets.” 

“Why is it so frowned upon to catch a legendary Pokemon, anyways?” Zero suddenly inquired. “After all, aren’t there league-employed trainers who own legendaries as well?!” 

Everyone stared at him as if he had grown a second head. 

J rolled her eyes. “Nice, little brother, why don’t you go ahead and ask Sinnoh’s champion then for permission to befriend Giratina? I am sure she would love to introduce you to it, again. Have a little chit-chat, have some coffee, dooming some souls to eternal damnation…you know, the usual stuff for an ideal first date.” 

The psychic to her left nodded silently. 

Zero crossed his arms, pouting. 

“I find that to be a legit question…” 

Everyone turned around to stare at the psychic, who wasn’t aware of the Pandora’s box she had just peeked in. 

Lance coughed, changing topics. “Either way, since we have a reputable target now, we may begin the process of locating him and gathering more information before making a move.” He stared right ahead. “You think you can take care of that?” 

“Lance, dear, I think I’m on the wrong side of legality.” 

“Miss Hunter, I wasn’t talking to _you_. Sabrina, since you’re the most familiar with the matter, would you take it into your hands to locate and approach the suspect?” 

The psychic nodded. 

“Eh, wait a second!” J uncrossed her arms, shoving herself into the centre of the laptop’s camera’s focus. “I’ll come with her, Lawrence’s my brother, after all!” 

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Oh, he is, isn’t it?” 

J sighed and mimicked his gesture. Well, he had been bound to find out either way… 

Zero grinned. “Of course you’ll come with her, she’s your girlfriend!” 

“She isn’t!” It was fortunate, really, that Sabrina was standing between J and her brother, for otherwise, the video call would have been abruptly cut off by Zero’s nostril swallowing the lens. 

Zero hand waved the comment in the direction of Lance, who, to J’s horror, seemed to have grinned at her brother’s statement. “Don’t believe her, she’s in denial.” 

Now there was no doubt about it anymore, the champion was smirking. “I figured as much.” 

J groaned in exasperation, before turning to the psychic. “Say something!” 

“…you are in denial.” 

For everyone involved, it was very fortunate that there was an area the laptop’s camera could not capture, for that ended up being J’s retreat zone in case of aggravating actions taking place out of her control. 

“Zero, you will occupy yourself with locating your brother’s ship…I suppose?” Hastily, the psychic added the question at the end of the sentence when she realized that she had been uttering a statement. 

“Sure. Give me fifteen minutes, and me and Infi should have rattled him out.” He stood up, saluted to Lance and packed his own laptop and equipment to look for a comfortable, quieter place to work at. Alone with his robot lady. 

Sabrina excused herself as well, although she left everyone in the dark about her actual destination. 

Which left the slightly embarrassed J, who silently approached the computer. 

Lance raised his eyebrows. “Is there anything you would like to add, Miss Hunter?” 

She took a short, heavy breath. She would have to get used to the fact that her name was now known to the league. No more Hunter J, no, now, she was _Miss Hunter_. 

“Will there be financial recompense for my efforts?” She asked, failing to hide her smirk. 

Lance sighed. It truly had come to the point where the league not only openly invited the criminals to their balls, but paid them as well, hadn’t it? “If it cannot be helped, then, yes. I expect success in order for you to be rewarded, though. Don’t try to trick the league. Don’t even think your family band of villains will get away with it if you plan anything. Got it? Play fair, and yes, you will be adequately rewarded for all of this.” And then, without waiting for J’s reply, he cut off the connection. 

J sighed and shrugged, taking a glance at her computer. She would have to ask her brother later on how to turn the camera off. 

~*~Scene change~*~

Several thousand of miles away, Lance still sat behind his computer, his hands forming a tent over the bridge of his nose, fingertips barely touching. He had his eyes closed, as he was caught deep in thought. Finally, he opened them again and pushed a button on his phone, establing contact with a different duo of agents he had under contract. 

“Yes, Lance?” A male voice answered, indistinguishable from the electronic distortion. Yet that didn’t matter, as the champion was just about to reveal its identity anyways. 

“Will, Karen? Change of plan…” 

~*~Scene change*~*

“Northern Johto? What is he doing there?” 

“Rumor has it that the legendary thunder Pokemon Zapdos resides near Crystal Lake, between Mahogany and Blackthorn. I assume this is his objective.” 

J let herself fall back into her chair, rubbing her temple. “So he’s totally back to his old ways? Gather all three birds and then hope, for some outrageous reason, that Lugia appears? Fine, sure, okay. Makes sense.” 

“Actually, given that he is targeting the legendary bird trio of the Indigo region now, it does make sense. There are myths about a small colony of Lugia living around the Whirl Islands, rumored to be the original hideout of the beast of Shamouti as well.” 

J blinked wearily. “Stop talking like that, you’re starting to sound like my brother.” 

“I apologize.” 

J waved the comment aside. “Ah, it’s alright, been some time since I last spoke to Law-Law, that’s all.” 

“…” The psychic silently contemplated what J had said, while the hunter watched her younger brother and her navigator interacting. The two got along quite well, something which wasn’t out of the ordinary for nerds like them. It helped, certainly, too, that both of them were frequent victims of her abuse and had something to cry to each other about. 

“…I am struck by the impression that you do not like your older brother.” 

J grinned. Even an emotional blind woman like her sometimes hit the mark straight. “Well, let me put it that way, Sabrina. Lawrence is the one time I wished our father had jizzed in his pants.” 

The psychic looked up at J’s stark expression. “Is it that bad?” 

“Worse.” 

Sabrina turned around, joining J in watching Zero. “Worse than him?” 

J scoffed and took offense at the psychic’s words. “I _like_ Zero.” 

“You hit him.” 

“Yeah, so what?” 

“…you nearly broke his nose.” Actually, she _had_ broken his nose, but Sabrina had felt generous enough to mend it back into place and heal it. 

J grinned. “You’re an only child, am I right?” 

“Yes.” 

“I figured.” 

The psychic furrowed her brow. “What does this have to do with…” 

“Tauroseye!” Zero interrupted her. “We got him! Actually, I got him, since _I_ was the one supervising the frequency monitoring, but Infi…” 

“Cut it out, Zero. There’s no need for ego-praising just yet.” J stood up and walked over to her younger brother to see the report he had been preparing. “He’s staying where he is?” 

“Has been, for the past two days. Might be preparing to capture Zapdos, who knows? He’s very close to the area Zapdos is believed to reside, so maybe? I doubt he has captured it just yet, knowing him, he would depart as soon as possible in that case.” 

J nodded. Her older brother was never one to waste time. “So now we’ve located and cornered him. Any idea on how to proceed?” 

“We should find out if he is actually in the possession of Moltres or Zapdos, or both. In case he is, it should be our duty to ensure that the birds are freed.” 

Sabrina glanced at J. “And make sure they stay free.” 

J rolled her eyes. “Hey, just doing a cost-benefit equation. Maybe I have someone up my sleeve who pays me more for the birds than your league’s?” She smirked. 

“Don’t lie to me, you don’t have any client currently interested in the birds save for Lance.” 

Zero giggled. “Well, too bad you’re dating someone who can read your body language perfectly, sis! No more secrets!” 

“Be glad that I continue to need your annoying motor mouth, brother, otherwise, you would now be a statue sunk to the ground of this lake!” 

“Given his interest in science, he might actually enjoy it, seeing as how there is a unusual source of electrostatic magnetism rumored to be at the bottom of it.” 

J snarled. “Why are you always siding with _him_?” 

“All tactical, sister. One day, I’m going to be her brother-in-law, remember?” 

It took all, literally all of J’s willpower not to make her threat come true and turn her younger brother into a statue. 

„Okay, either of you got any plans on how to figure out if he’s got the birds?“ J said to prevent a tantrum. 

“Let that be my concern.” And the psychic stood up and teleported away, leaving J and her brother to wonder just what she had in mind. 

“You think she’s going to be all spy-movie like on him?” Zero asked, arms crossed behind his head. 

J glanced at him disparagingly. “What makes you think so?” 

Zero shrugged. “Well, she is an agent of the league, isn’t she? Geee-Men, or how they call themselves.” 

“G-Men I think it is, and she never mentioned if she is actually one of them.” J paused. That was something to keep in mind. In all but theory, these were her defined arch-enemies. 

Her track of thoughts was stopped short by a blinding light, that was neither her head commander having turned on the headlights, nor Arceus’ ray of divination engulfing her. No, it was just her personal fortune teller that followed her like a puppy. 

“You’re back already?” J exclaimed. That had barely been two minutes of absence! And the woman was still alive and, more or less of sane mind, it seemed, so she couldn’t have possibly met her brother. 

“Yes. I negotiated with Lawrence. We can enter his ship at will now.” 

“...forgive me my incivility, but are you sure you went to the right ship? That does not sound like Lawrence at all.” 

“I can assure you that my teleporting skills have never failed me insofar as location goes, unless I was misaiming on purpose.” 

J shrugged, but nonetheless ordered her head navigator to land the ship. “And try to break off some side mirrors this time! Last time you missed all of them!” 

“What about me?” Zero asked, bidding farewell to the new friend he had made- probably the first and only one for a few years. 

The hunter shrugged again. “I guess you can come, too?” She actually directed her question towards the psychic, who didn’t so much as react, though, as they left J’s now invisibly parked battle fortress. 

“Well, our brother definitely downsized…last time, his ship almost outgrew mine, and look! This time it’s barely enough to cover the whole parking lot.” 

She didn’t question the existence of a parking lot next to a remote lake. She had long since foregone questioning any projects the league had financed with money that, thankfully, they hadn’t been grabbing right out of her pocket. 

“Well, economy is hitting everyone equally hard, sis. I think I had to take up two stipends to finance my own ship.” 

“Oh, how tragic. Maybe Law-Law could have given you a discount. Or you could have recycled his own old ship, I seem to remember that you are particularly good at turning mechanic shit into something worthwhile.” 

Zero was too surprised at something that might actually be considered a true compliment to react accordingly, instead standing in stunned silence in front of what was their brothers second capture unit. 

“Forgive me the question, freak, but I’m death curious as to how you actually persuaded our brother to let us onto his ship. Last time someone tried that, forcefully, he tried to eject them after giving them a tour of his private museum. And while this is a method I’m not opposed to, I would rather have it not happen to our own asses, if you get what I mean.” 

“You may be forgiven. And it was relatively easy. I simply announced our engagement and he was positively taken aback so that he decided to invite us spontaneously to a private dinner.” 

“Yeah, that wor…WHAT?” 

A hunter J did not trip. A hunter J was ambushed by a rogue stone that happened to try to commit suicide by hitting her heel at the wrong time. 

“That’s not how it works!” She, positively, shrieked. 

Zero concurred. “That’s right, she skipped one step! She never proposed!” 

If they hadn’t been directly in front of the stairs leading into the ship, J would have taken the time and dumped her brother headfirst into the lake. After cramming bricks into his trousers. She didn’t have a cement mixer ready, sadly. 

“Dumbass, she skipped two fucking steps! She is not even my girlfriend.” And the hunter continued to pout and cross her arms. 

“She isn’t?”’ 

“No? Who told you she was, Zero?” 

“Well, she herself did.” 

Cue to J’s face blanking and turning aside for the psychic, who was still patiently waiting for the sibling quarrel to end, as if it totally didn’t center around her. 

“When?” 

“Well, when she got me out of prison…” 

“Okay, wait a moment, bro, gotta have a word with her _really fast_ …” 

“No problem. Take your time. And get yourself a room if it gets too steamy, yeah? I will watch from the balcony.” 

“Prepare to be sniped, Zero, if you so much as eavesdrop.” 

She knew him well enough to be aware of the ways and means he had in order to spy on her, and as much as it hurt her to admit, he was almost better at it than she was. She would have to rely on her psychic to tell her, and given that the psychic hadn’t found it all that worrying to pose as her girlfriend even to her _brother_ , the question of her loyalty was all the more pressing. 

“Are you mad? You can’t just do that! Zero will believe anything, even me having jumped over the hedge, if you get what I mean.” She was a mindreader, she had to get what J meant, either way. 

“Calm yourself. It is just an act. And the more honest it is played out, the more convincing it will be. Remember that this act is what brought us permit to enter Lawrence’s ship.” Sabrina didn’t wait for J to interfere, instead proceeding towards to the entrance. 

J frowned. “I have the feeling that you’re getting a bit too much into the act…”


	3. Chapter 3

Part III

“Welcome, welcome! It is my pleasure to invite you into my little world! I am sorry it is so cramped, I had barely enough space to accommodate my precious artifacts in here, so the living quarters got the short end of the stick.” 

And that was putting it nicely, J mused. This ship was no airborne apartment, it was foremost a flying museum with something resembling a shoebox with a bed squeezed in. The actual dining room was more akin to a conference hall adorned with esthetically tasteful scalps and several taxidermic preserved specimen, just the perfect atmosphere to wet one’s appetite. 

Not that it helped that J wondered who the hell her brother expected to invite onto his ship. Business men interested in stockpiling his expensive collection of holo cards? 

“I hope you are okay with poor lonely me cooking your dinner tonight, because I did not have the resources left to hire a cook. Interior decoration is expensive when you have to make sure that your collection stays in perfect condition.” 

Yes. Because having perfectly preserved trading figures was more important than a warm meal. 

J tried to hide her cringe. She knew her brother’s cooking, and from the look of dread on Zero’s face, he, obviously, knew as well. They might as well have been feasting on packet soup. 

“That should pose absolutely no problem.” Uttered by the fortunate one who had no idea what kind of garbage meal she had gotten herself into. 

Then again, being a psychic probably meant that she could not be poisoned the ordinary way, so she was out of discussion, anyway. 

Lawrence disappeared into a small side room that was barely big enough to pass as a kitchenette, and contained such luxury items as a mini fridge and a kettle. And an egg boiler, just as to spite her brother’s already laughable cooking skills. 

“I must admit, sister, I am honestly surprised to hear about you tying the knot.” 

“You, and me…” She lamented. 

“I think someone like you would prefer to go through her life all alone, not to saddle herself with the responsibilities of a marriage.” 

J propped her chin up in her palm. _He_ was certainly one to talk. With all the time he spend with Pokemon instead of humans, the impression one could get was an entirely different here as well. “Maybe sometimes, we feel lonely enough to actually break through that barrier of self-imposed celibacy and decide to let someone walk our way with us for a while, however short that may be. Reclusion is easier to bear when you’re together.” 

Zero raised an eyebrow. “My, sis, that almost sounded philosophical! Did you quote that?” 

“Yeah, from the book I’m just going to hit you over the head with.” 

Their older brother laughed, bringing with him, sure enough, a bowl of something that smelled suspiciously like instant soup, and had barely just the right consistency not to be called water with flavor anymore. 

And that, J mused sadly, was just the start. 

Then again, maybe she could use the dinner to ask him about his latest explores, without arousing his suspicion. 

Or, if she was lucky, his pride would get the better of him and he would do so himself. 

She glanced at her side, seeing the psychic sitting calmly next to her. It was about time J got her lucky streak back. 

“I was surprised to see the two of you out of prison. Weren’t you supposed to be detained for some time, actually?” Lawrence asked, taking it to painstakingly highs to ensure that his suit did not get stained. Why he had bothered with serving tomato soup then, of all the things, J could only begin to guess. Likely, it was for him to prove that his superior manners simply prevented him from being maculated in any way. 

“So were you, dear brother, if I understood right.” She glanced at him, wondering if he would dare to ask her for sources for her claim. She had heard it from the league firsthand, but it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for her to have picked it up during her shady travels as well. 

“Oh, it pays off to have the right connections when you want to avoid trouble. You know, grease the right wheels, please the right heels.” 

“Take out your eel and kneel.” Zero added, innocently peeking at the wide open class ceiling. 

J was inclined to slap her brother in the face if she hadn’t been totally surprised at the fact that not only did he manage to fulfill the pun, but also do it in a halfway fitting sexual way. Heck, she hadn’t even known her brother to have any understanding of humane reproduction besides the bare basics of biology. 

“Something like that.” On the other hand, Lawrence was positively unconcerned. He was one of these characters that would, when presented with a stark naked woman having rolled herself up in an Pokemon skin, protest vigorously and unwrap her rabidly in order to preserve the poor, violated artifact. 

“You paid your way out of prison. How uncouth. Bad style, brother. I would have expected you to break open the prison walls with your personal helicopter.” 

Said the one who paid for her freedom with her status as a single. 

“You don’t know me well, sister, obviously. I haven’t owned a helicopter in years. Not spacious enough and the noise, oh dear.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, which, sure enough, stayed as white as his vest. The few tomato particles that had been mixed into the powder had likely dispersed between the three guests. 

Excusing himself, he stood up and cleared away the plates. He apologized in advance for not having prepared anything again. “But this joyful occasion came as a total surprise to me, dear sister!” 

J tried to squeeze out a smile. “You don’t even know…” She wailed quietly. 

“It saddens me to say that had I known about it beforehand, I would have prepared more in advance, dear sister. A real banquet. Guests! I would have invited our dear father if you had informed me earlier!” 

J faked heaving. “Oh please, spare me the honor.” She coughed, hitting her chest in case she had actually chocked on that single piece of tomato paring that was hidden somewhere in the soup. “I mean, thank you for your concerns, brother, but I do not think we want to make a big show out of it.” She glanced at Sabrina. Of course she didn’t want to spread their so called engagement around, as it was as fake as fake could get. At least one part had that impression. Or hope. 

“Actually, I thought it would be more fitting to make it a bigger event comparable to other league happenings, seeing as this is how we met in the beginning.” 

Hope, definitely hope it was. 

J didn’t care how suspicious her brother got as she glared furiously at the gym leader, her fear that the psychic was taking this act way too seriously growing by every minute. 

“You met at the league? Oh my, sister, what has become of you? You’re losing your edge, it seems.” 

A knife to the wall behind him informed him about the accuracy of his statement. 

“My, my, Jean, sister dear, be careful with that. You could hurt someone. Or worse, damage the décor.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Brother, the Tauros’s already dead, the worst I can do is put that skull out of its misery and make it crash to the ground.” She paused, pursing her lips. “And we met in prison, let’s not get the facts mixed up.” 

Heaven forbid, that was actually her brother giggling! Now she started to regret wasting that valuable butcher’s knife on something that could not cringe with pain anymore. 

“That sounds more like it! I see, you still have your amicable sense of humor.” 

“Nowadays, Law-Law, that’s the only thing keeping me sane anymore.” She dared to glance at the psychic again, finding her to be all too uncaring, instead preoccupying herself with the sad excuse of a steak that seemed to be made out of her brothers designer shoe soles, marinaded in Botox. 

“Hey, may I ask what you’ve been up to recently, big bro? I haven’t seen you in years, you actually finished your collection?” Zero left it open to interpretation what collection he was actually talking about, seeing as how their older brother seemed to collect everything that did not move anymore. 

And way too many things that still moved on top of that. 

Lawrence sighed deeply. “ I am afraid to say that after my first failed attempt at completing my bird Pokemon collection, I was forced to abandon all endeavors of collecting for a while. The better part of it was destroyed along with my first ship. I was only recently able to scrape together the resources needed to restart my collection.” 

Zero glanced at J, who was slick enough not to let the spike of interest the conversation had just been injected with show. 

“You did?” She asked, nevertheless. “My, brother, you never bothered to take up a more sensible hobby?” 

“Oh, you mean kinky torture and thievery, like you do? Or IT-management, the occupation Zero barely scrapes through without making a fool out of himself…again, I might add?” 

“At least I have a degree!” 

“A degree in what? In connecting your computer with the circle of life? Please, Zero. You weren’t even going for something tangible!” 

J fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Oh, and you were? What palpable proof do you have of your success?” 

She saw the gleaming in her brother’s eyes, and she knew she had hit the jackpot. “You want to see my achievements with your own eyes, sister? Oh, I can oblige you.” He stood up, carefully wiping his mouth again, which hadn’t even touched the so-called meat in disguise in the meantime. “Sorry, dessert will have to be cancelled.” 

J rammed the fork between her younger brother’s fingers for emphasize when he dared to pout at these words, but the hunter was positively puzzled when the psychic seemed to be just as crestfallen. 

“You haven’t missed anything that wouldn’t scrape the tissue out of your stomach, anyway.” If that cheered up the gym leader, then it only showed in her trying to actually take J’s hand in hers. The hunter flinched back just as fast. “No, this is an act, have you forgotten that already?” She hissed under her breath, finding the psychic to putting on the affirmably most childish pout she had ever seen on a living being’s face that was verifiably over the age of five. 

“Oh, come one, you gotta be kidding me…” She glanced at her brothers, which were already on their way to Lawrence’s personal zoo that fully consisted of Pokemon he had totally lawfully acquired. Zero was actually looking shyly over his shoulder, registering that his sister and rightful protector was staying behind. 

“Oh, for Arceus sake!” Grudgingly, she took the psychic’s hand and yanked her along behind her. 

“And these are immensely rare North and South Sea Shellos. It took me seven months of wandering Sinnoh to acquire these beautiful specimens. You see the differentiations in coloration? They’re minimal, but they’re there. North Sea Shellos is actually of a light peach color, in contrast to the bright pink of the West Sea Shellos, and South Sea Shellos’ body is of a powder-blue color….” Lawrence turned around. “Just like our dear sister’s hair, no?” He spread his arms. “Tell me, aren’t these just beautiful? And so rare, so far, there has not been a single colony found! The sheer existence of these Pokemon is a mystery!” 

The psychic at J’s side, who refused to let go of her hand no matter how much J punished her by twisting their wrists, took a brief look at the pair of Pokemon. “That is because they’re not a different species, but so called shining Pokemon of their respective species. They are rare indeed, but not in the way you’re proposing.” 

“Oh, they are, aren’t they?” Lawrence’s enthusiasm sank faster than his ship after a direct hit. 

J rolled her eyes. The psychic had never learned how to butter someone up, had she? It wasn’t exactly advantageous for them to madden Lawrence. 

Not that it took much to drive him over the edge, but one didn’t need to force it. 

Lawrence sighed. “You’re a tough nut to crack, I see. Interesting choice you’ve made there, sister.” He grinned. It was the kind of look on his face that made J wish she could just cut it short and hurl him out of the window. 

Knowing him, though, he would have hidden a paraglider beneath his suit and give her the finger while flying off into the sunset. 

The collector smacked his lip against his gum. “So it seems that I have been forced to get out the big guns now, hm? I’m actually glad it has come to this, sister. Maybe you’ll all become witness to my greatest triumph so far! Wouldn’t you like that?” 

Not any more that she would have liked to lick tomato soup off his floor. 

But she had to admit, as far as plans that weren’t really well-thought-out plans at all, this worked splendidly well. While she was no fortune teller- not any more than her so called ‘fiancée’ was, she would certainly make the bet that whatever her brother was gushing about now had to do a lot with the birds. They were, after all, what he liked to describe as his Holy Grail. 

“Well, what do we have here?” 

“An overgrown, burned turkey?” Zero asked, crossing his arms over the other. 

“No, and this time, I’m fairly sure I’m not mistaken!” Lawrence hissed. “Witness the burning fire of the legendary bird, Moltres! Isn’t it enlightening? Isn’t it, ah, I know, almost romantic, to stand so close to the radiant of the sun?” 

Sure. If only he would step a little bit closer so that his hair would actually get scorched. _That_ would be sight to behold and keep in mind! _That_ would warm up her heart! 

J scoffed as she noticed that the psychic had taken the chance to grab her arm and hold it tight, emphasizing that it would be hard to get rid of her now. If J had actually worried about possessiveness being a problem before, she now certainly did. 

Lawrence sighed deeply. “It has been years since I last had the chance to see a Moltres that close up.” 

„Ehm, no, Lawrence, this is actually our sister blushing up a storm!“ Zero giggled. 

J wouldn’t have minded getting back at least enough of her freedom in order to be able to punch her younger brother. Surprisingly, the psychic obliged, even if only by leaving J’s side for a short moment. Yet, still, it gave her enough time to walk over to 

Lawrence, and examine the captured Legendary. It was, she had to admit, a sight to behold from up close. 

Moltres was caught in what J assumed was one of the so called Enormous balls. They were unlike any other Pokeball she had ever seen or come into possession thereof. Normal Pokeballs, as far as she knew, weren’t transparent. They also didn’t have the neat feature of the Pokemon being visible behind their dome, something which might depict the consequence of transparent walls. But even this novelty could not explain properly why the Moltres was positively glowing with an eerie, golden hue. J had seen her fair deal of legendaries in her life, and she was positive that none of them had emitted this kind of light over a longer amount of time, especially not when the Pokemon seemed to be in a state of trance, or sleep. 

She whistled, if only to uphold the impression that she was taken aback by his achievement. “Not bad, Law-Law, for someone who couldn’t properly tie his show-laces at thirteen.” She glanced downwards. “And at thirty-seven, nothing has changed, I see.” She coughed, before her brother could point out that her bra holder had slipped out of place, as that wasn’t her fault, but rather that of an overly enthusiastic psychic who had taken up the goal of dislocating J’s shoulder while appearing as clingy as possible without verging into stalker territory. 

But then again, giving her actions, the psychic was likely not even above such. 

And who was there to stop her, if she did? Police? Certainly not. 

J sighed, deciding to squeeze more information out of her brother to keep her mind off the less pressing, but no less disturbing matter of the psychic posing as her future bride. “Mind illuminating how you managed to catch Moltres? We’re family, no need to withhold secrets.” If something like Karma existed, she was up for an anvil dropped on her for that single lie alone. 

Lawrence seemed to be of similar opinion, but his pride got the better of him before he could challenge her question. “It was a tedious process, dear sister. First, I had to wring out the blue-prints for these wonderful devices out of the league’s hands.” He petted the smooth surface of the Ball, his visage, as J noted with disgust, being reflected. “The league wanted to impress the public with their huge Balls, but I beat them to it by building my own giant Balls.” J glanced at Zero, finding him to be grinning as well. “Then I spend around a whole month loitering around the Silver Mountains before I was able to locate the cave of Moltres. In hindsight, that was the easier part of the mission. It was much harder to squeeze my solid, sizeable Balls into the tight entrance of the cave without damaging them. Convincing Moltres to jump onto them was less difficult because of my impressive persuasive character.” 

J had to bit her tongue to keep herself from laughing. Likewise, Zero had started staring at the ceiling with a look that seemed strangely otherworldly. Only the stoic psychic remained. 

J poked her in the side. “It wouldn’t kill you to crack a real smile for once!” 

Sabrina glared back. 

“Once Moltres was safely placed in one of my gigantic Balls, I had to transport it back into the ship, which proved to be even more difficult than the action of removing them, because my Ball was now considerably heavier.” 

Zero seemed to have stopped breathing in order to keep himself from laughing, while J’s chest was the only thing betraying her amusement. 

The psychic still stared ahead, but J could tell that it was all façade and not much restrain left. 

“Once that was done, well, I was able to place the Ball with Moltres inside into the museum.” 

“You plan on putting your tremendous Balls on exhibition?” J asked as dryly as she could while her lungs were positively burning. 

“Well, of course.” 

“So people will come to see them?” Zero uttered with as much strength as he had left in him, conspirationally winking at his sister. 

“That is my hope.” 

J glanced at the psychic. She was close, so very close. 

“You must be proud of your massive Balls then.” Was it really that hard to talk without breathing? Or, for the matter, to live on without a tongue, as Zero seemed to be intent on biting his off. 

Lawrence, to their misfortune, was getting suspicious. “Of course. Though I must admit, without the league, I would have never come into their possession, or else, we would have soon started a competition of who is able to create bigger Balls.” 

“Oh, I see. That must have been…” J waited for the perfect moment to deliver the punch line, glancing at her side. “…a tough nut to crack.” 

And with that, the golem at her side finally cracked as well, breaking out into guffawing so bright and loud that J almost didn’t believe it to be coming from the creepiest woman she had ever met. 

“You…” J wasn’t sure which word the psychic was actually going for, but assumed that it would rhyme with ‘witch’, as Sabrina actually treaded on her foot, all the while crying with laughter and holding her chest tightly in case she toppled over with an unexpected heart attack. 

“…did I miss something?” Lawrence asked. 

“Nope.” Zero grinned. “Just the taming of the unhumorous.” 

If Lawrence hadn’t known it any better- and actually had a sense of humor that was triggered by immature puns, he would have said he had been witness to the first time ever that his sister didn’t response to physical violence by blasting the offender into space. 

Instead, she was positively _having_ a blast with that ‘fiancée’ of hers… 

Sadly, their moment of reconciliation was broken by the shrill sound of a siren going off. 

“What went wrong?” Zero asked, blinking, still in the possession of his gustatory organ despite having done his darndest to choke on it before. 

“Zapdos.” Lawrence explained in an eerily dreamy voice. 

“Zapdos went wrong?” 

“No, you idiot! Zapdos is appearing!” 

J and Sabrina shared a look. The hunter contemplated if and how she could snag the electric bird right under her brother’s fingers, while the psychic wanted nothing more than to prevent exactly that from happening. 

And, if she couldn’t help it, without turning anyone present into a small child’s toy. It was an option left, though… 

Lawrence seemed to forget altogether about his guests and instead went up into his own cloud of grand delusions. 

Or command centre. That worked as well. 

With him having disappeared upstairs, the three more or less voluntary league employees had no other choice but to follow the starry eyed collector. 

There, it seemed as if he came at least back to his senses long enough to register the presence of spectators. 

“Attention! Behold! Witness the power of human technology conquering the natural beauty of a beast!” 

J kicked Zero before he could actually agree with his older brother. 

In front of Lawrence’s ship was something that could, with the suitable humbleness, only be described as a natural disaster. And it was neither a haircut gone wrong nor someone pissing off the powerful psychic. 

Which might, in fact, be one and the same thing. 

No, it was the legendary bird of thunder, Zapdos, who had just decided to wake up from its slumber and take a short fly around the lake it protected oh so well. Only for it to suddenly be assaulted by flamethrowers. 

J crossed her arms. “You improved, brother. Last time, you only had artificial tasers.” 

“And that disadvantages me how, dear sister? Do I need to refresh your memory to make you bear in mind that I had caught all three birds last time, despite having _only artificial tasers_ , as you imbecile call them?” 

J shrugged. “It just seemed inefficient. You wasted energy with the tasers and by keeping the Pokemon in these artificial cages.” She nodded to her calcification gun. “As statues, the only thing they consume is space.” 

Which Lawrence had in abundant, but that was neither here nor there. 

“My sister, ever the analyzer.” Lawrence shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s begin the capture progress!” 

And just this moment, the siren went off a second time. 

Lawrence furrowed his brows. “Something went wrong this time.” He uttered, before gliding over his control panel with smooth, fast fingers. 

J would have to ask him later how this was possible with gloves on. 

Then again, she mused, she would get a very long-winded explanation battle between her brothers, and she was just not ready for this kind of mind-numbing lecture yet. She certainly hadn’t indulged in enough alcohol for allowing that to happen. 

Lawrence’s hands were flying over the control panel, his eyes jerking from one side to another, as various pictures switched in rapid succession over the screen. J could barely register the images and was sure she had seen at least once the private chamber of her brother, which, just as she had expected, consisted of a bed and a drawer and nothing more. 

Her brother grumbled deep. “It seems that we have even more guests.” Of the unwelcomed kind. 

And then, the round dance of pictures finally stopped long enough for the trio to actually register them, and immediately, Sabrina and J shared a look of negative foreboding. 

Lawrence sighed. “So the league is already on our heels. How unfortunate.” 

J had recognized the young man at once, and was sure of his identity, even if she was quite baffled at him still wearing that plain, black mask weeks after the masque ball had taken place. Still, there was no other individual that could represent an eggplant that easily. 

Who she didn’t recognize, though, was the woman following in his shadows. The surveillance pictures weren’t blurred or anything, so her attire was bluntly visible. And even J, who had seen her fair share of agents over the years, had to admit that she was positively bewildered. 

And yet, she reminded herself, someone who took on a secret mission in high heels was certainly a force to be reckoned with. 

„That is Karen“, the psychic, hunched behind J, whispered in a strange thunderous tone. 

“You know her?” J asked back, lamely, well aware that bringing up her ‘fiancée’s’ occupation might tip Lawrence off. And with all the more good reason, even! 

“Yes. Of course. She is an Elite Four, just like William is.” The psychic paused, seemingly unsure of her next words. “She’s also Will’s girlfriend.” 

“And is that important in any way?” Zero asked, ducking away from his sister’s elbow just before it would have broken his nose a second time. 

“I don’t know about you, Zero, but from my experience, couples working together in secret missions _always_ pose a bigger problem than single individuals.” She snarled. The topic held a lot of explosives in store for her. “They have more to lose. Never piss off couples, or, heaven forbid, actually injure one part. The other will swear revenge, Zero, that you won’t even be able to find our asshole after they’ve blown you to pieces.” 

Lawrence, whose mind was occupied by finding ways to do just that to the infiltrating league agents, paused long enough to bare a teething smile at his younger sister. “Oh, of course you’ve got experience with that, Jean. Of course.” 

The single, the only, the one reason why J didn’t pull out her gun at this moment and blasted his pitch clotted lips through his throat and out of the back of his head was because she had no idea how to navigate his ship, and while she was sure that her younger brother would be able to maneuver it without as much as a manual, she didn’t want to begrime his virgin eyes with their older brother’s flesh. 

That was the tiniest bit too macabre, even for her. 

Maybe the psychic would take over for her. 

“Any plan on how we deal with them?” Zero asked lamely. He still threw a glance at his two team mates, but they were holding back for the moment. 

Lawrence straightened his back and went over to Moltres’ glass prison. “We won’t.” He pushed a button on a remote control he had carried with him from the control panel, and the Ball started to light up, as did Lawrence’s eyes. “Moltres will.” 

Again, over the course of her impressive career, J had seen and captured several legendary Pokemon, and she was pretty sure this was not the end of the road for her, either. Moltres hadn’t been on her bucket list, so far, which meant that she was in for a new experience. And one hell of it, it was. The opening of a Pokeball was, normally, not a spectacle to behold. In fact, it got pretty lame after the third or fourth time, at which most of the recipients were ten-year old children. Therefore, someone more than twenty years older had seen her fair share of Pokemon freed and didn’t think much of it anymore. 

But just like the giant Ball itself proved to be a miracle, so did the release of Moltres. The Ball erupted into blinding, white light, sprinkled with golden flakes and soon afterwards with the glimmering ashes of Moltres’ wings. The bird screeched, and shook itself, causing sparks to hit the entire floor. It cranked its neck and turned to its captor, the look in its eyes angry at best, outright furious and murderous at worst. 

Lawrence’s face turned sour. “Well, while it is understandable that you would be upset over your capture, Moltres, let’s not forget that it _is_ me who is your official trainer now, and therefore, you have to obey me!” 

As if negotiating with a legendary bird had ever been an option. Especially one that couldn’t even have been calmed down by its supervisor Lugia. 

And what had Moltres done to Lugia, instead? Yes, attacked it, indeed. 

Which just made for the brightest outlook for Lawrence, after all. 

The collector gulped. “Is this how Pokemon normally behave? You tell me, you are trainers, after all.” 

Sabrina sighed, almost, if she had been capable of showing her disappointment. She had only just started to allow herself to laugh in front of J, it would be too much of a stretch to ask her to expand her emotional display just yet. “The huge Balls are prototypes. It may be that they are not sophisticated enough yet to include the taming mechanism.” 

“You’re telling me now?!” 

“You never asked…” 

Lawrence took a deep breath. “Jean, you might have to rethink your choice of partners.” 

J, on the other hand, crossed her arms. “Never thought less about it, brother.” 

And this moment, several, unfortunate things happened at once. 

For once, Moltres became aware of its rival Zapdos circling the unusual object invading its territory, and having literally a bird’s brain, the fire Pokemon had no other incentive anymore than to prove to the world that it truly was the most powerful of the trio, and with a mighty battle cry, it broke through the glass front, which in turn alerted Zapdos to the double invasion and caused the thunder bird to attack not only Moltres, but everything in its direct vicinity, which included the sad group of humans. 

On the other hand, this was also the moment the two Elite trainers stormed the halls as well, their respective Pokemon at their sides. 

Almost reflexive, J called upon her Salamence, while she saw out of the corner of her eye her brother getting his Magnezone ready. 

Both were stopped short, though, by the psychic scolding them. “Did you forget which side of the law you are on, for the moment?” 

J rolled her eyes. “Sorry, automatic reaction.” Still, she felt more comfortable having a Pokemon by her side right now, especially since things were getting ugly no ten feet to their left between Zapdos and Moltres. 

Something which the two Elite trainers obviously noticed as well. 

“My, how did you manage to wreak so much havoc in such a short amount of time again, Sabrina?” The young man, their wanna-be blackmailer Will, asked. 

Sabrina, to give her credit, didn’t even cater to his words. She grabbed J’s wrist and teleported them over to the two trainers, so that they would have a suitable and competent human shield. “Are you going to take care of this?” She asked with a strangely hissy voice. 

“Sure….” Now, J realized why the psychic might have acted up. Whoever this woman was that accompanied Will, she was something to be wary of, and J didn’t say this from a villain’s, but from a mere sane human’s point of view. No one who could utter a single word with such a morbid combination of carnality and frenzy that it chilled her down to her bones should be trusted, ever. And that was before Karen turned around and licked her pinky. 

“Gengar!” She called out. Her action had apparently been command enough for the grinning ghost, as the Pokemon disappeared into the shadows, and reappeared over in-between the fighters, all the while wearing the most fashionable slasher smile J had ever seen on a Pokemon. It wasn’t as offsetting as it was on its trainer, for sure, but the difference was, all in all, marginable. The Gengar then proceeded to laugh loudly at the two unfortunate birds, who had no idea how to properly react and backpedaled fast. Not fast enough for the ghost, though, as it licked over the whole of Zapdos’ forehead- J asked herself if that shouldn’t _hurt_ , given that Zapdos’ feather structure made it look as if it had outgrown Carvanha’s Rough Skin, before Gengar disappeared back into the shadows, all the while cackling to itself. 

J glanced at Sabrina. Hadn’t the psychic owned a Haunter herself? Should that worry her? 

Whatever effect the Lick attack had on Gengar, it was clear that Zapdos was affected gravely by it. The bird stood still and stiff, its eyes wide open with a look as if it had been caught walking out of its nest with only its boxers on. 

Which was absurd in case of a wild bird, but it made for an interesting mental picture, anyways. 

“Xatu!” Now with Zapdos being taken out of the game, the psychic Elite Four felt comfortable sending out his own bird Pokemon, which promptly went over to the slightly stunned Moltres. Again, no direct attack was being uttered, but J had the feeling that this time, it was the consequence of telepathy being used. 

Now, J knew enough about Pokemon attacks to be aware of the fact that Hypnosis’ accuracy was anything but overwhelming. And still the strange bird Pokemon managed to lure the much bigger legendary bird Pokemon into sleep almost immediately, without burning its wings off. 

She retreated slowly, keeping her guard up. These two were Elite trainers for a reason, and while she had no problem with going on a collision course with the Elites of her own region, that was rooted in the fact that she knew them by now. 

And they knew her. 

It hadn’t come to the point of mutual respect yet, but at least each party was aware of the other’s dangerousness. 

And speaking of danger… 

“No!” Her brother, enraged by this unfortunate turn of events, jumped behind his control panel, swiftly pushing some way too ominous buttons. 

Their effect, though… 

“Oha, out of the way!” Zero exclaimed, boarding his Magnezone and flying out of the contact zone before the giant Pokeball could roll over him. The stunned Zapdos was taken by surprise, though- mostly because it was paralyzed and could not move away any way, and was hit by the structure, at first falling over like a tumbled statue. 

Then, though, its paralysis was broken off. And as if that wasn’t enough bad luck in itself, the riot woke Moltres up, of course. 

“Thanks for your input, brother! Really! Couldn’t have done it any better, myself!” J snarled. 

Lawrence himself fumed just as much. “Sister, do I have to remind you which side of the law you are usually located on, as well?” 

J glanced at Zero, who had landed next to her and answered first. “Well, brother, I’m on the side that pays me the most, and, I’m afraid, since the league pays us anything, while you don’t pay us anything at all…” 

“And as for me, I’m on whatever side my girlfriend is on.” J crossed her arms, before she had the chance to register what she had just said and start an invalid tantrum as well. 

Zero tutted her. „Fiancée actually, don’t forget that.“ 

Of course, that caused a confusion, as not everyone present had been aware of the apparent change in status. 

“What?” Will asked, turning around and alternately glancing between J and Sabrina. “Well, that escalated quickly…” 

J rolled her eyes. “You’re telling me, boy…” 

“Don’t you boy me, hag! I am long since no boy anymore!” 

It was by no means certain, but without Sabrina holding her back, J might in fact have attacked their only sane savior. And a good thing it was that she was being restrained in the end, because while she was fully capable of dealing with legendaries when she had enough time to prepare and the right equipment on hand, handling two of them that were exceptionally angry without arrangements in advance was a bit troublesome. 

Elite trainers, it seemed though, were always prepared for these occasions and knew how to de-escalate them. 

“Gengar, Confuse Ray!” 

On the other hand, some Elite trainers seemed to find joy in upsetting the balance and causing even more collateral damage. 

“Xatu, Confuse Ray!” 

And apparently, some amorously involved Elite trainers forgot all basic rules of fighting as soon as they were battling alongside their significant other and just went their way, their sanity taking a holiday. 

From the moment on the two confused legendary birds began trashing the finely selected interior of Lawrence’s ship, J swore to herself that she could never let her own battle style be influenced by that of the strange psychic. She knew the power of the Elite Four, and she knew enough about their cleverness and cunningness to determine that all these two were up to was even more trouble. 

In fact, they seemed to enjoy the chaos they had just produced, putting further discredit to their pedigrees. 

“Xatu, Whirlwind!” 

No, Moltres using Flame Wheel on the pillars wasn’t enough of a hazard. It had to be a burning tornado to really get across how awesome the situation truly was. 

“Is the league always this suicidal?” J asked lamely, turning to the only one who could even give her a sensible answer. 

The hunter wouldn’t have been able to read Sabrina’s face even if her life depended on it. The stoic was back to her old ways. “No, I assume not. But the G-Men in general have a different concept of danger and peril.” 

“Good to know. Remind me never to set foot in Kanto again, honey.” 

“Will do.” 

J turned back to her, surprised. “I wasn’t serious…” 

And again, she wasn’t all too sure, but she thought she might have seen the psychic giving her a minuscule smile. “Good. I would have regretted repeating your oath to you.” 

Glass crashing brought an abrupt end to their discussion, as Zapdos had decided that the hall was hideous enough as it was and didn’t need any more fake artifacts lying around uselessly. It might also have been that Zapdos’ sense of direction was influenced by the colorful swirls it saw dancing around its head, reminiscent of that one time it had indulged a bit too much in fermented fruits. 

Either way, the consequence was that a shower of sharp glass shards raining down on the humans. Zero took hide behind his Magnezone, while Will shielded everyone else with a psychic barrier. 

“Would you already cut the show, and take care of the job the way Lance instructed you to?” Sabrina asked her colleague in the same strangely gnarly voice she had used before. She also glared daggers into Karen’s back, who, to J’s surprise, seemed to notice the invisible assault and turned back, tongue out. 

Usually, this was an act of exposure, meant to embarrass the recipient. While this wouldn’t have worked in this case either way, J was sure that the undertone of Karen’s action was anything but innocent. In fact, it rubbed her in quite the wrong way again, and she found herself edging towards the border of the psychic barrier. If she had to choose between being close to this woman, wiggling her tongue like a thirsty Growlithe, and having her eyes pierced by stray shards, she would gladly choose the latter. 

“Okay, okay, killjoy.” Will wagged his hand, and the control panel that Lawrence had been clutching the whole time left his hands and reappeared in the male psychic’s ownership. “What do you think, baby? Capture ourselves some birds?” 

Karen nodded, eyes wide open and jaw clacking against her upper teeth. J would wager that this was her way of impersonating her own Gengar. 

“William….” 

At the personified sound of impending doom, J edged away a few more feet, yet found that the safest place next to the wall was already occupied by her brother and his Pokemon. Ruthlessly, she let Salamence take on the job of scaring the two of them away. 

“Lance wanted the birds to remain free. I do know that you have the authority to catch them, but I do not think that this was the intention our supervisor had for this mission.” 

The other psychic rolled his eyes. “Really, Sabrina, do you _have_ to spoil all the fun? Haven’t you seen how majestic these giant Balls look like? I bet they would suit little old me very well!” 

J and Zero shared a look. Sabrina took the time to glare at them at the speed of light, before turning back to Will, angrily. “There are plenty of other options they can be used on. Besides, they are prototypes. They were never meant to be used outside of the test laboratory so far. We do not know how they’ll affect the Pokemon inside.” 

“Fine, fine….can’t get away with nothing when you’re around, I see.” His eyes seemed to linger longer on J than was necessary, and the hunter felt herself becoming uncomfortable with his glance. So much that she detached herself from the wall and placed herself near the Saffron gym leader. 

William sighed. “Okay, how about that…your ‘fiancée’s’ brother there”, if his gesture was to be understood right, he found the sudden betrothal to be fishy as well. Sadly, Sabrina would have disagreed with him on that,” and I take care of Moltres. Lure it out of here and back towards its territory in the Silver Mountains eastwards, hm? Dear Karen here knocks Zapdos out so we prevent it from following Moltres and safely return it to the lake as well. No worries, the lake will heal it, special electrical currents in the water, or something.” He shrugged. “And you two can take care of the dumbass behind me who tries to glue some fake China back together.” 

There was an uproar of protest as Lawrence claimed that he had the right certificates to document the authenticity of all of his belongings. 

The female psychic’s sigh was almost inaudible. “Agreed.” She looked at J, who shrugged. Taking care of her brother was not on her list of hobbies, but that was merely because they didn’t meet often enough. Otherwise, she would have gladly started giving him the same treatment as she did with Zero, just a bit, ah, harsher in case of Lawrence. 

Gotta show how she played favorites, after all. 

Avoiding the obstacles on their way down the stairs proved to be more difficult than J had anticipated, and involved, to her chagrin, the psychic jumping up her prized Salamence as well and hugging her for balance. 

“You couldn’t do that on your own?” J asked sarcastically, while keeping her face straight and in front of them, not only in order to look out for any more debris thrown their way, but also to hide the raising blush from everyone present. 

She definitely didn’t want to end this endeavor with a mass murder. Not just yet, when she hadn’t had the joy of kicking Lawrence in the, pardon, balls yet. 

“Not as long as she’s around…” Sabrina hissed, much to J’s surprise. The hunter would have liked to ask her what exactly she was mumbling about, but they had to land first. Lawrence, being less than sixty feet away from them, had obviously heard about the new plan, and wasn’t all too keen on being captured and imprisoned in succession, muss less by his own sister. 

In pretty much the last ditch effort that he could come up with, his grabbed his own miniature tasers. Yet, just because they easily fitted into his palms, they were no less dangerous when you wanted to avoid having the most outrageous hair style ever, oh, and didn’t want to be electrocuted to death. J was well aware of that, and therefore, didn’t waste any time aiming her own calcification gun at him. 

“You traitorous bitch!” Lawrence shrieked, before hiding behind a desk, which immediately changed structure and material in ways humanity could not explain just yet. 

“Sorry, I could not understand you clearly over your bitchy whining!” J snarled. She glanced backwards for a moment, just to be sure that her younger brother was safely accompanied by the psychic Elite four. How it was physically possible for a _Natu_ , of all things, to carry a full-grown, adult man, was beyond her knowledge, but she wouldn’t be surprised if some psychic power wasn’t featured as well. 

She jumped backwards in surprise when her brother came out crawling from under the desk and shot off the electric beam at her. She barely avoided the thundershock, although Lawrence’s advance was cut short by something resembling a midnight black stream from the side. It didn’t even fully came in contact with her brother- barely grazing his suit, and still, the fabric hissed and dissolved, as if it had been doused with acid. 

“What is…” 

“Shadow Ball.” 

Apparently, yes, the psychic still had her Haunter. And that strange ectoplasmatic being that J hadn’t quite come to terms with was an not only a great comedian and conqueror of its own trainer, but also an excellent battler on its own. 

Lawrence had to jump over the desk in order to avoid the Shadow Ball, which disappeared as it came into contact with the solid object. 

“Oh, how nice of you to make a detour! I was waiting for you…” Momentarily forgetting that it would have been easier to turn him into a statue- if certainly less satisfying, she tried to ram her elbow into his face, only for him to sidestep her, making her lose and balance and subsequently making her fall from Salamence and hitting the modified desk with a harsh grunt. 

She turned around quickly, knowing her brother not to be a slacker in this regard, and just as she had expected- and feared, if she had been honest with herself, he had already use his chance to taser her Pokemon- which was a pitiful attempt in itself, but it angered and irritated the dragon enough that it lost its focus and crashed to the ground as well, shaking its sizzling head. 

One opponent taken care of for the moment, Lawrence jumped down towards her, taser in hand, grabbing a knife that had oh so conveniently been left over from dinner. She would have likely managed to push him to the side, but thankfully, that wasn’t needed. The psychic had had left Haunter to his own devices- if J’s eyes didn’t betray her, he was currently supporting Karen’s Gengar, and now she proceeded to kick Lawrence to the side before he could hurt the hunter. 

Lawrence responded by growling and throwing the knife in the general direction of the psychic, who, for a split moment, looked taken aback and had to duck out of the flight path in order to keep her face from being speared. 

“YOU BASTARD!!!” J positively roared, forgetting herself for a moment. And considering we are talking about an already ruthless hunter here, it was a miracle she didn’t just bite through Lawrence’s neck the next moment. 

She grabbed his collar, and pressed him against the glass walls, fully intending on crushing his trachea. “Don’t you dare to hurt her…don’t you dare to hurt another of my girlfriends. You have done enough damage already.” She hissed with the malice of Nemesis, disregarding the fact that the psychic was behind her and seemed utterly confused about the deal. 

Lawrence, speech being a slight inconvenience for him since breathing was hard enough as it was, hacked. “Oh, are you still sour because of Miya? I told you, I have nothing to do with her death, that was an accident…” 

J pulled at his collar again, nearly ripping the fabric apart. “I do not believe in coincidences anymore when it concerns you, brother. Not only were you with her, it was _your_ fucking idea to join in the first place! And look what happened! She is gone! Gone! Just when we were ready to take on the world! We could have had everything! We would have raised her daughter together, as a real family, not the lousy excuse you and father pretended to have! But no, you had to put this idea of grandeur in her mind, and encourage her on taking this mission! Ending with her death! You….” She pushed him against the glass, intend on doing so until it would crack and she could hurl him out, downwards towards his misery, his face disappearing from her life forever and for the better. 

A miniature coughing from behind held her back. “Jean, I think it would be better to turn him over to the police.” 

Her shoulders slumping, all of her anger leaving her like a faucet turned on, she fell to her knees and let Lawrence fall to his side next to her. 

No, she would not cry. A hunter J did not cry. A hunter J had a minor eye irritation that resulted in discharge, but never cried. 

She heard someone walking up to her, and guessed, correctly, that it was the psychic, who was silently approached her. Sabrina took a short look at Lawrence, who was on the floor, gasping for air like a deranged Magikarp. Taking another glance in the direction of the Elite trainer, who was still in the middle of her battle with Zapdos with the additional help of her own Absol and Sabrina’s Haunter, the psychic sighed. She was frustrated by the ordeal of having to wait until the dark woman actually withdrew her Pokemon before she could be of any substantial help. 

“Are you alright?” She asked J, coughing politely. There was another burning question on her mind right now, but she felt confident in guessing that it was nothing J wanted to cater to right now. 

“Yeah…I think so.” It was less than a lie when she believed it herself, right? 

J stood up, rubbing all resemblance of mourning out of her eyes, and followed the psychic’s gaze towards Karen. The trainer had easily gotten the upper hand, but it was hard to tell whether or not she was succeeding in her goal of beating Zapdos. Or, rather, whenever she actually _wanted_ to succeed, as it seemed that she was positively toying with her prey like a carnivorous Pokemon before the kill strike. 

J made a face. Definitely role model material for the young generation of trainers. 

“Should we help her out?” J asked. She nodded towards Salamence, who had taken it upon itself to guard Lawrence, both from ill-willed attempts at fleeing as well as the wrath of his ill-tempered sister. 

“She should be able to take care of this on her own.” 

And by all means, she was. She just prolonged the inevitable, by deliberately using attacks that did little damage, but annoyed Zapdos to no end. Sabrina was irritated at seeing Haunter joining the fun, so she called him back before he could actually take upon Karen’s battle style. 

What she hadn’t expected to provoke with her action, though, was an attack going astray. 

J actually saw it before Sabrina did, which in itself was an oddity that screamed for explanation. Yet no matter how fast they could have reacted, though, they wouldn’t have been able to stop the attack. 

In J’s eyes, it was just a dark blur across her field of vision. Like a distortion following an invisible path, slightly crescent-shaped. The attack had been intended for Zapdos, obviously, but the bird had shifted when the threat of the smaller ghost was removed from the game, and thus, the attack suddenly drifted towards the two women. 

J quickly jumped to the side, Sabrina a moment later to the other side. Still, she didn’t manage to avoid it fully, and her left hand was caught in it, causing her to shriek uncharacteristically loudly with pain. 

If J hadn’t exhausted her whole arsenal of nasty actions for that day, and didn’t feel mentally tired for some reason, and didn’t know fully well that she was dealing with a dark Elite trainer here, she would have had a word with Karen, and it wouldn’t be a nice one. 

Instead, she slowly crawled over to the psychic, who sat hunched against the wall, holding her wrist in her hand and wincing every time she as much as tried to move it. 

“What was that?” She was aware that Pokemon attacks had a different effect on humans, and she was all too well aware of how dark attacks absolutely trashed psychic Pokemon, but she had never seen a dark attack hurt a human psychic. 

Then again, Sabrina was the very first human psychic she had gotten to know personally. 

“You’re alright?” She asked softly, fully knowing that her question was actually unnecessary. Of course the psychic wasn’t alright, would _she_ of all people cringe with pain, otherwise? 

Still, the younger woman took a moment to answer. “It will be alright. It will take a while to fade, but there won’t be lasting damage.” 

“What damage at all, if you forgive me the blunt question?” 

A sigh. “The effect of a dark attack on a psychic is not visible to the mere eye. It is an injury on a deeper level. You might as well say that it rips apart the Aura of a being, yet actually, that is oversimplifying things bit.” 

Oversimplifying and incomprehensible at the same time. She would have congratulated her on that achievement if not for the morbidity of it. 

J blinked. “So you’ll be alright?” 

“Yes. Give it a day or two.” 

“Hey, girls! Sorry, that was not intentional, my dear baby here misaimed!” Karen swiftly jumped onto the platform next to them, her Absol on her heels, purring as its mistress petted its furry collar. 

Sabrina forgave her fast. Too fast for J’s liking. “Have you beaten Zapdos?” 

An eager nod. “Of course I have! Birdie did not know what came over it, hah!” 

J raised an eyebrow. Not only the ‘birdie’… 

Karen turned around. “And here are our Lords and Misters.” 

That was…grossly overestimating the tiny amount of respect J had for her brother, but it made for a nice entrance any way. 

“Got Moltres back into its cave for all it’s worth!” Zero said, while jumping from his airborne Magnezone. J noted that he had some burn marks all over his body, as did his Magnezone. Still, both of them looked oddly proud with themselves. She would have to beat that out of them later before it could have lasting effects on his self-assurance. 

Will followed. “Zero here agreed to fly the ship to the headquarters so we can properly confiscate it. Guess Lance will be happy about another vehicle in his already impressive car pool.” The psychic paused. “I hope so, at least…” 

“So we’re out of woods?” 

“Well, figuratively, dear sister…” 

J rolled her eyes, purposefully knocking the end of her gun into Zero’s chest. 

Sabrina slowly stood up, bowing to Will, and, to a smaller, next to none existent amount, to Karen, before turning to J. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my time to heal now…I’ll see you again in due time.” 

J was just about to ask the psychic how she was supposed to return to her own ship, since they were still airborne despite massive damage having been dealt to the ship, when she felt the familiar tingle of a teleport enveloping her whole body. 

And surely, seconds later, she was left standing in the middle of the command centre of her own ship. 

Her henchmen had obviously not expected their leader to return at any given time, since they were busy watching certain movies on the main screen. 

J snarled. She wouldn’t have punished them so hard if they had actually been watching porn movies, as men their age were supposed to, but _no_ , her useless suckers actually had to watch _cartoons_ … 

End Part III 

Epilogue 

And your hand is okay?” J asked, head resting in her palm. A few days had gone by, and she had actually started to worry about the psychic, since she hadn’t heard anything from her, and the papers were also suspiciously quiet about anything other than the actual imprisonment of her older brother. Someone within the league must have been pulling string either way, as neither her nor her brother were mentioned anywhere. Officially, it were forces of the league itself- in other words, the holy G-Men, that were responsible for this successful endeavor. 

Not that she was jealous, or angry at being embezzled. The less attention that was brought to her name, the better. 

“Yes. I told you it would heal after a while. It was a mere inconvenience not being able to use it for a few days.” The psychic, standing stiff across her, answered. 

“Good.” J paused. She had wanted to add that she had worried for the psychic’s health for a moment, seeing her hand basically paralyzed by something well out of her realm of understanding, but she would rather bite her tongue off than actually doing so. 

It didn’t matter, as the mind reader let a tiny smirk show. That smile disappeared fast, though. “There is something else I wanted to talk about.” 

J closed her eyes. “If it’s about what I said at Lawrence’s…” 

“Yes.” 

“I didn’t mean the girlfriend part. That just…slipped out.” She turned her head to the side. Definitely she hadn’t meant that. A true slip of the tongue, nothing more. 

Sabrina paused. “That was not what I meant.” There was no need to talk about this bit. Sabrina knew as well as J did that she had meant it, actually. 

“If it’s about Lawrence and his…questionable deeds in the past, you won’t get any information squeezed out of me, either. Read my mind if it’s of any importance to you.” 

Sabrina shook her head. Not that she was above such actions, but that was certainly not her point of interest, either. 

For the moment, at least. 

“Then what?” 

“…Lawrence was talking about your father. He made no mention of your mother, though.” 

J rolled her eyes and nearly groaned. So they went from one unfortunate topic to another, eh? 

“That’s because she’s dead.” 

“Oh. My deepest sympathy.” 

“No need, honey. She died twenty-four years ago, just a year after Zero was born. He knows next to nothing about her. With father and Lawrence, I was the only kind of motherly figure left in the family.” She laughed emptily. “I don’t think I did a very good job.” 

Sabrina wisely, for once, chose not to comment that. “I have talked to Lance. The league’s compensation should arrive within the next days. I shall also relay his deepest gratitude for your and your brother’s assistance in this delicate business.” 

J shrugged it off. “How’s Zero, by the way? I heard he’s getting along quite well with Professor Oak and…how was his assistance’s name again? Giles?” 

Sabrina opened her mouth, only to freeze. “I…think so.” She paused, then coughed. “Indeed. He is presenting himself as a very talented young man who will certainly be of great help for the professor in the future.” The psychic paused again. “And you?” 

“Hm?” 

“Do you have any plans?” 

J shrugged. “I’ve gotten an assignment in concerning the Regigigas around Snowpoint. And let’s not forget the issue with the giant Dragonite that still needs to be solved. Let’s see what can be done about that.” 

“I would wish you good luck on that, but that would speak against my chosen alignment.” 

J laughed. “No trouble, honey. You certainly were enough of a lucky charm recently.” She slowly stood up, intending to end the conversation. 

Yet, once she was on her feed, she stopped in her movement. “I’ll see ya around?” She asked, a few decibel quieter than what was the usual volume for J. 

Sabrina didn’t answer her. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed J straight on the lips. 

Breaking the kiss off just as swiftly as she had initiated it, the psychic teleported away with a smirk. 

J, for her part, stood there, slightly dazzled, until she managed to shake her head and let herself fall back into her chair, thankful that she had invited the psychic into her personal quarters. She was fairly sure that had the kiss actually taken place in her command centre, there would be no survivors left to tell the tale. 

And that undoubtedly included herself. 

But before she could sit down, she felt something small, solid shifting in her pocket. Blinking, she picked it up. 

It was an USB-Stick, labeled with four letters- “EB-BP”, wrapped in a hand-written note. 

_‘I did not humor myself by stealing them just for fun.’_


End file.
